Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/757

 PKA-O-WAlE-ASiff-KUM V. SOBIN. 743 �land to Sorin, one of the defendants, makiog expreflateference to the bill filed in this case, and authorizing and directiug thegrantee tO cause this Mil to be dismissed; These conreyanoes thus made by theplaintiff are attacked as not hftving been madft by her with full knowledge of the faicterj and it is claiuied that ^h'e Waa noteware of what*&be was signing,: and theirefdre that'the conveyftnces aie inopi- erative.: ^The proof shoWs that she ^as not able to Write nor to speftk' English; that ali commanioalious to her in EngUehJhad to be made through an interpreter: ' The^ proof iw of suek 'a tibS/taoter that if the ' case bad to rest npon the vaiidity of ihose deodsthere would be soitifr. diffibUliy iii BU-Stiaining them, bocause it does not ap^pear very cleariy, although thete is agctod' deal of evidence' tendirigtd that conclueiou, that she did fully underatand ■ the purport and effebt of the papers that ske BIgnSd. T do not, therefore, think it necessary to place the decision of the court in this case ttpon these dfeedB, but rather tipoa other grounds. ; ■ .' o :■' �The proof ^seeiiis to show 'that she "was married tO Ash-kum by a Cathoiic priest as'early as 1834. ffeere is' also proof sbowing thftt she and Ash-kum lived together'asfinan and wife'ftfter their remoVal to Kansas, where he died ia 1846;. TJttder the law of this state, at the death of her husbaud she' beftftme endowable of bis interest in this section of landfshe' not having been a party to the deed whioh her h as-, bfend made in 1836. ■ The agteement to grant had been made by the United States ; the laiid had been located and surveyed, and the bouhd- arles had been establi^hed, at thetime of the death of her husband. It is triie, the patent bad not isSued, but still her husband, if he had never tiiade any grant of the laad, would have been clothed with every righ't exoept what migkt be cfonveyed by the issue of the patent to hini, and ehe-was also clothed with th^ inchoate right of dower, which be- came perfect on his death. There bas been possession admitted ^and payment of taxes by eeveral of the defendants, under the grant from Ash-kum,-' and a general appropriation of the land for more than seven years prier to the filing of this bill. But' it is claimed by the couusel' of the plaintiff, although he bas put in proof to show that the plaijitiff was natiiralized as a citizen by the district court of the United States, in Kansas, on the thirteenth of Getober, 1869, that she, beifig an Indiatt woman, is not subjeo-t to 4he 'general rulcs ap- plicable to ordinary citizens; that she is clothed with special immu- nities in consequence of her tribal relations, she stiir boing a' mem- ber-of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians; and consequently all those ��� �