Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs - 1896

Page 80

78 REPORT OF THE COMMI8SIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, This action on the part of the Government has had a most important influence upon the question of intruders in the Cherokee Nation, as mill be seen from the amendment to the Cherokee agreement of 1891, adopted by Congress in the act of 1893 ratifying the agreement, which will be set out below. Under these instructions Agents Marston and Tufts issued certifi-cates to a great many parties who made prima facie proof of their Cherokee blood, and all such, most of whom believed that these certifi-eates admitted them to Cherokee citizenship, remained in the nation, many taking up laud an& making improvements like +he fully recog. nized citizens of the nation. These certificates, which were known and referred to as "prima facie certificates," were issued by the Agents from time to time to parties making proof until August 11,1886, when under instructions from this office their issuance was discontinued. A11 claimants who had these certificates were known as prima facie claimants, and all claimants entering the nation and making applications for citizensliip prior to August 11, 1886, when the issuance of these prima facie certificates was stopped, have been recognized as entitled to a certain extent to some protection in the property acquired and improvements made by them in the nation in good faith under the belief that they had rights there by blood. August 21,1888, the Secretary of the Interior directed that adecision by the Cherokee authorities against a elaimant to citizenship in the natlon should be accepted as fixing the status of such claimant as an intruder in the Indian country, and as such liable to removal there-from. But in view of the circumstances under which many claimants had been induced (frequently by assurances of Cherokees in high places of authority) to enter the nation in good faith, believing that they had rights there by blood, and to take up aqd improve lands therein, and in view of the encouragement given by the Department in the issuance of prima facie certificates, so called, the Secretary also directed that they should be given reasonable time and opportunity to . dispose of such of their property in the nation as was not of a character to admit of its removal. The claimants to citizenship in the nation whose claims had been rejected by the Oherokee authorities were notified early in September, 1888, of these instructions from the Department, and were given six mouths within which to dispose of their improvements and to remove. Later, in March, 1889, it was represented to the Department that citizens . of the Cherokee Nation, to whom alone the intruders could lawfully sell their improvements, refused to purchase, because they claimed that at the end of six months from the date of notification the intruders would beremoved, when their improvements could be taken possession of with-out the formaLity of purchase. The Secretary therefore directed that the time fixed for the intruders to sell their improvements and to remove should be extended without limit.