Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 5.djvu/550



revived and continued in force until the powers conferred by this act shall be fully executed, subject, nevertheless, to repeal or modification by any act of Congress. And all the powers and duties of the commissioners are hereby extended to claims arising under the nineteenth article of the said treaty, and under the supplement to the said treaty, to be examined in the same manner and with the same effect as in cases arising under the fourteenth article of the said treaty: Provided, That the salary of said Commissioners shall not exceed the rate of two thousand five hundred dollars per annum.

. And be it further enacted, That subpœnas for the attendance of witnesses before the said commissioners, and process to compel such attendance may be issued by the said commissioners, or any two of them, under their seals in the same manner and with the same effect as if issued by courts of record, and may be executed by the marshal of any district, or by any sheriff, deputy sheriff or other peace officer designated by the said commissioners, who shall receive for such services the same fees as are allowed in the district court of the United States for the district in which the same shall be rendered for similar services, to be paid, on the certificate of the commissioners, out of the contingent fund appropriated by the fourth section of the act secondly above recited, which was approved on the twenty-second day of February, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight, and which is revived by this act: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to revive such portion of the, referred to in the first section of this act, as provides for the employment and pay of the district attorney of either of the districts of the State of Mississippi.

. And be it further enacted, That when the said commissioners shall have ascertained that any Choctaw has complied or offered to comply with all the requisites of the fourteenth article of the said treaty, to entitle him to any reservation under that article, which requisites are as follows, to wit: that said Choctaw Indian did signify his or her intention to the agent, in person, or by some person duly authorized and especially directed, by said Indian, to signify the intention of said Indian to become a citizen of the State, within six months from the date of the ratification of the said treaty, and had his or her name, within the time of six months aforesaid, enrolled on the register of the Indian agent aforesaid, for that purpose; or shall prove, to the entire satisfaction of the said commissioners and to the Secretary of War, that he or she did signify his or her intention, within the term of six months from the date of the ratification of the treaty aforesaid, if his or her name was not enrolled in the register of the agent aforesaid, but was omitted by said agent; and, secondly, that said Indian did, at the date of making said treaty, to wit, on the twenty-seventh day of September, eighteen hundred and thirty, have and own an improvement in the then Choctaw country; and that, having and owning an improvement, at the place and time aforesaid, did reside upon that identical improvement, or a part of it, for the term of five years continuously, next after the ratification of said treaty, to wit, from the twenty-fourth of February, eighteen hundred and thirty-one, to the twenty-fourth of February, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, unless it shall be made to appear that such improvement was, before the twenty-fourth day of February, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, disposed of by the United States, and that the reservee was dispossessed by means of such disposition; and, thirdly, that it shall be made to appear, to the entire satisfaction of said commissioners, and to the Secretary of War, that said Indian did not receive any other grant of land under the provisions of any other article of said treaty; and, fourthly, that it shall be made to appear, in like manner, that said Indian did not remove to the Choctaw country west of the Mississippi