Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 25.djvu/654

 GCS FIFTIETH CONGRESS. Sess. I. Ch. 1211. 1888. r. 211.- n act re to the Cherokee freedmen and others their pro- pogtgdgf bertain {proceed;) dfmgnds, under the act of March third, eighteen hundred and eighty-three. Ch°'°k°€ "°°dm°°- Whereas it is provided in the ninth article of tI1G treaty of July Pmmbk" nineteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, between the United States and the Cherokee Nation of Indians, that freedmen who have been liberated by voluntary act of their former owners, or by law, as well as all free colored persons who were in the (Cherokee) country at the commencement of the rebellion, and were then residents therein, or who might return within six months, and their descendants, shall have all the rights of native Cherokees; and, _ VVhereas by the fifteenth article of the aforesaid treaty certain terms were provided under which friendly Indians might be settled upon unoccupied lands in the Cherokee country east of the ninety- sixth degree of west longitude ; and the Indians thus settled were, upon full compliance with the provisions of said article, to be incorporated into and ever after remain a part of the Cherokee Nation, on e ual terms in every respect with native citizens; and, Wcliereas under the provisions of the aforesaid fifteenth article an agreement was entered into between the Cherokee Nation and the Delaware tribe of Indians, on the eighth day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, which agreement was approved, respectively, by the Secretary of the Interior and the President of the United States on the eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and by the terms of which the Delaware Indians "became members of the Cherokee Nation, with the same rights and immunities and the same participation (and no other) in the national funds as native Cherokees;" an Whereas under the rovisions of the aforesaid fifteenth article an agreement was entered into between the Cherokee Nation and the S awnee tribe of Indians, on the seventh day of June, eighteen hundred and sixt -nine, and a proved by the Secretary of the Interior and the Presidrent of the llnited States, respectively, on the ninth day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, by the terms of which the Shawnee Indians were incorporated into and became a part of the Cherokee Nation on equal terms in every respect, and with all the prgileges and immunities of native citizens of the Cherokee Nation; an Whereas it is gfovided by the sixth article of the aforesaid treaty that all laws of the Cherokee Nation shall be uniform throughout said nation; and Whereas by an item in the act makin appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for dm fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty-four, and for other purposes, Vchfv, p. 624. approved March third, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, the sum o three hundred thousand dollars was "appro riated, to be paid into the treasury of the Cherokee Nation, out of tihe funds due under appraisement for Cherokee lands west of the Arkansas River, which sum shall be expended as the acts of the Cherokee legislature direct; " anc Whereas by an act of the Cherokee legislature, which was passed over the veto of the principal chief and became a law on the nineteenth day of Maiy, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, the principal chief was directe to cause the said sum of three hundred thousand dollars to be paid out per capita to the citizens of the Cherokee Nation by blood and which sum has been paid out only to Cherokee citizens by blood, as directed by said act; and Whereas by the said act of the Cherokee legislature the aforesaid freedmen, Delaware and Shawnee Indians have been deprived of trinleir legal and just dues guaranteed them by treaty stipulations: ere ore,