Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 3.djvu/423



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if any Indian, or other person or persons, shall within the United States, and within any town, district, or territory, belonging to any nation or nations, tribe or tribes, of Indians, commit any crime, offence, or misdemeanor, which, if committed in any place or district of country under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, would, by the laws of the United States, be punished with death, or any other punishment, every such offender, on being thereof convicted, shall suffer the like punishment as is provided by the laws of the United States for the like offences, if committed within any place or district of country under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States.

. And be it further enacted, That the superior courts in each of the territorial districts, and the circuit courts and other courts of the United States, in which any offender against this act shall be first apprehended or brought for trial, shall have, and are hereby invested with, full power and authority to hear, try, and punish, all crimes, offences, and misdemeanors, against this act; such courts proceeding therein in the same manner as if such crimes, offences, and misdemeanors, had been committed within the bounds of their respective districts: Provided, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to affect any treaty now in force between the United States and any Indian nation, or to extend to any offence committed by one Indian against another, within any Indian boundary.

. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States, and the governor of each of the territorial districts, where any offender against this act shall be apprehended or brought for trial, shall have, and exercise, the same powers, for the punishment of offences against this act, as they can severally have and exercise by virtue of the fourteenth and fifteenth sections of an act, entitled “,” passed thirtieth March, one thousand eight hundred and two, for the punishment of offences therein described.

, March 3, 1817.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, from and after the passage of this act, all those persons who shall hold any share of the joint