Tribal Rolls
As this law in its intent purported to be a
final settlement of all Indian claims of the aforesaid tribes, including
the Choctaws, the old claims of the Mississippi Choctaws were revived.
Congress was faced by these facts. The treaty
of 1830 had provided for all Choctaws desiring to remain in Mississippi
a home without cost to them upon their complying with the requirements
of that treaty. Hundreds of Choctaws had made application for their
homes and had done, as best they knew how, all that was required of them
to secure their homes, and were defeated in their claims only through the
fault of the United States Indian Agent. In other words, that the
Mississippi Choctaws had not secured their homes in Mississippi in 1830
according to treaty stipulations was due to no fault of theirs, and the
United States Government was still at least under moral obligation to perform
its part of the original contract. But at this late day it was impossible
to supply these homes in Mississippi for lack of sufficient public domain.
Furthermore the lands in the Choctaw and Chickasaw reservations in the
Indian Territory were held in common by the two tribes. No Choctaw
or Chickasaw owned a foot of land in the Indian Territory exclusive of
any other member of these two tribes, but owned only an undivided interest
in common with all other members of these two tribes to any and all lands
reserved to the Choctaws and Chickasaws.
The claims of the Mississippi Choctaws were
settled not by giving them the lands promised them in Mississippi, but
in lieu thereof lands in either the Choctaw or Chickasaw reservations in
the Indian Territory. Nor was the Mississippi Choctaw given the same
number of acres in the Indian Territory that was promised him in Mississippi,
but was given an equal right, upon his proving his claim, with the Choctaws
who had already moved to the Indian Territory.
The first embodiment of the authority for settling
the claims of Mississippi Choctaws in the manner just outlined is found
in the 21st Section of the Curtis Bill. This section in providing for the
making of rolls of citizenship of the several tribes provides for Mississippi
Choctaws as follows:
“Said commission shall have authority to determine the identity
of Choctaw Indians claiming rights to the Choctaw lands under article fourteen
of the treaty between the United States and the Choctaw Nation concluded
September twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred and thirty, and to that end
they may administer oaths, examine witnesses, and perform all other acts
necessary thereto and make report to the Secretary of the Interior.”
The commission referred to in the above paragraph
is the commission known in law as the Commission to the Five Civilized
Tribes, but in popular parlance called the Dawes Commission from its first
chairman, Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts. This Commission with
headquarters at Muskogee, Indian Territory, began at once the onerous task
of making the tribal rolls provided for in section twenty-one of the Curtis
Bill.
The necessity of these new tribal rolls is
evident. The old rolls of citizenship as made by each tribe were burdened
with fraudulent claimants, many of whom had no rights whatever as Indians.
To make these new rolls it became the duty of the Commission to pass upon
every claim for Indian citizenship filed before it. Plenary powers
were vested in the Commission in the performance of its functions. Each
claim that passed the approval of the Commission entitled its owner to
an allotment in severalty of the lands and annuities of his tribe, and
with the Choctaws an allotment in either the Choctaw or Chickasaw lands,
these two tribes holding their lands in common.
“Full bloods” experienced but little if any
difficulty in securing the approval of their claims by the Commission;
the greatest difficulty arose over the large number of claims for citizenship
made by the mixed breeds and those who had no Indian blood at all, many
of whom resorted to the blackest frauds to establish their claims. The
Commission rejected many of these fraudulent claims. Some rejected claimants
instituted proceedings in the United States District Courts for the Indian
Territory under the Act of June 10, 1896, and came to be known as “Court
Claimants.”
The District Courts permitted actions to establish
Indian citizenship to be instituted before them de novo and prosecuted
to decision. Some Court Claimants were reinstated by the court, others
were again rejected. Additional evidence was sometimes secured and new
trials granted. Appeals lay from the Commission to the Secretary of the
Interior, and from the United States District Courts to the Court of Appeals
of the Indian Territory and probably to Higher Courts, including the Supreme
Court of the United States. These appeals were sometimes prosecuted. In
this way some court claimants went from court to court with their claims
until they had exhausted all their means. A discontented and purse-ridden
rejected court claimant once compared the Indian Territory to a cow; the
citizens were holding her by the horns and the Court Claimants by the tail,
while the officials and lawyers got all the milk.
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