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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN ATFAIRS. 137 1,872 heads of families, of which. 983 have been acted upon by this Ofice, and, 716 have been returned by the Department, leaving 889 pending in this Office. The supplemental agreement with the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, already referred, to, provides, among other things, for the identification and subsequent enrollment, after residence in the Choc-taw Nation, of full-blood Mississippi Choctaws. It also provides, whether ratified or not, for a court with jurisdiction to hear and, if deemed proper, to reopen citizenship cases which have heretofore been rejected by the courts in the Indian Territory. The Department has ruled, following the statute, that only those Mississippi Choctaws, or their descendants, who reeeived or attempted to secure the benefits of the fourteenth article of the treaty of Danc-ing Rabbit Creek of September 27, 1830 (7 Stats., 333), are entitled to he identified as Mississippi Choctaws. In order that a check might be had and also that identification as descendants of fourteenth article claimants might be made as com-plete and certain as practicable, it became necessary for the O5ce to examine all the evidence taken and all the lists of claimants made by the various commissions in Mississippi immediately subsequent to the year 1630. This evidence, and, in fact, all of the papers connected with the examinations made by those commissions, was found to be in a fragmentary and unsatisfactory condition, thus making the examina-tion extremely difficult. However, the examination was exhaustive and careful, and a card index has 'been made containing about 6,000 names, which is as correct and complete as it was possible to make it under the circumstances. When an application for identification as a Mississippi Choctaw is received; the evidence and statements submitted are examined for the name or the names of the alleged ancestor who is said to have received or attempted to secure the benefits of the fourteenth article. If such name or names are not found in the card index it becomes at once necessary to recommend the rejection of the application. If, however, the name or names be found, then the original records made directly subsequent to the year 1830 are examined in connection with the new record and application. It is a notewo$hy fact that the Commission was able to identify but 7 individuals out of the large number of applications received by it. In addition to the Mississippi Choctaw cases which have been acted upon, the Office has considered and made recommendation in 134 doubt-ful or disputed citizenship cases in the Choctaw Nation, being the whole number which the Commission has transmitted. In the Chickasaw Nation the whole number of cases transmitted by the Commission is 106, all of which have been acted upon by the OEce, and in the Cherokee Nation 1,271 case3 have been disposed of. |
