II. The first general council shall consist of one member for each
tribe, and an additional member for each one thousand population or
fraction thereof over five hundred. Any tribe failing to elect such
members of council shall be represented by its chief or chiefs and
headmen in the above proportion. The council shall meet at such time
and place as the Superintendent of Indian Affairs shall approve. No
session shall exceed thirty days in any one year. The sessions shall be
annual; special sessions may be called by the Secretary of the Interior
in his discretion.
III. The council shall have power to legislate upon matters pertaining
to intercourse and relations of the tribes and freedmen resident in
Indian Territory; the arrest and extradition of criminals and offenders
escaping from one tribe or community to another; the administration
of justice between members of different tribes and persons other
than Indians and members of said tribes or nations; and the common
defense and safety. All laws enacted by the council shall take effect
as therein provided, unless suspended by the President of the United
States. No law shall be enacted inconsistent with the Constitution or
laws of the United States or with existing treaty stipulations. The
council shall not legislate upon matters other than above indicated,
unless jurisdiction shall be enlarged by consent of the national
council of each nation or tribe, with the assent of the President of
the United States.
IV. Said council shall be presided over by such person as may be
designated by the Secretary of the Interior.
V. The council shall elect a secretary, who shall receive from the
United States an annual salary of $500. He shall transmit a certified
copy of the council proceedings to the Secretary of the Interior and to
each tribe or nation in the council.
VI. Members of the council shall be paid by the United States $4 a day
during actual attendance on its meetings and $4 for every 20 miles of
necessary travel in going to and returning therefrom.
13. The United States may establish a court or courts in the
Indian Territory, with such organization and jurisdiction as may
be established by law, provided that the judicial tribunals of the
Cherokee Nation shall retain exclusive jurisdiction in all civil and
criminal cases arising within their country in which members of the
nation shall be the only parties, or where the cause of action shall
arise in the Cherokee Nation, except as otherwise provided in this
treaty.
14. Every society or denomination erecting or desiring to erect
buildings for missionary or educational purposes shall be entitled to
select and occupy for those purposes 160 acres of vacant land in one
body.
15. The United States may settle any civilized Indians, friendly with
the Cherokees, within the latter's country on unoccupied lands east
of 96°, on terms agreed upon between such Indians and the Cherokees,
subject to the approval of the President of the United States. If
any tribe so settling shall abandon its tribal organization and pay
into the Cherokee national fund a sum bearing the same proportion to
such fund as said tribe shall in numbers bear to the population of
the Cherokee Nation such tribe shall be incorporated into and ever
after remain a part of that nation on equal terms with native citizens
thereof.
If any tribe so settling shall decide to preserve its tribal
organization, laws, customs, and usages not inconsistent with the
constitution and laws of the Cherokee Nation, it shall have set apart
in compact form for use and occupancy a tract equal to 160 acres
for each member of the tribe. Such tribe shall pay for this land a
price agreed upon with the Cherokees, subject to the approval of the
President of the United States, and in case of disagreement the price
to be fixed by the President.
Such tribe shall also pay into the national fund a sum to be agreed
upon by the respective parties, not greater in proportion to the whole
existing national fund and the probable proceeds of the lands herein
ceded or authorized to be ceded or sold than their numbers bear to the
whole number of Cherokees, and thereafter they shall enjoy all the
rights of native Cherokees.
No Indians without tribal organization, or who having one shall have
determined to abandon the same, shall be permitted to settle in the
Cherokee country east of 96° without the permission of the proper
Cherokee authorities. And no Indians determining to preserve their
tribal organization shall so settle without such consent, unless the
President, after a full hearing of the Cherokee objections thereto,
shall deem them insufficient and authorize such settlement.
16. The United States may settle friendly Indians on any Cherokee lands
west of 96°; such lands to be selected in compact form and to equal in
quantity 160 acres for each member of the tribe so settled. Such tribe
shall pay therefor a price to be agreed upon with the Cherokees, or, in
the event of failure to agree, the price to be fixed by the President.
The tract purchased shall be conveyed in fee simple to the tribe so
purchasing, to be held in common or allotted in severalty as the United
States may decide.
The right of possession and jurisdiction over the Cherokee country west
of 96° to abide with the Cherokees until thus sold and occupied.
17. The Cherokee Nation cedes to the United States, in trust to be
surveyed, appraised, and sold for the benefit of that nation, the tract
of 800,000 acres sold to them by the United States by article 2, treaty
of 1835, and the strip of land ceded to the nation by article 4, treaty
of 1835, lying within the State of Kansas, and consents that said lands
may be included in the limits and jurisdiction of said State. The
appraisement shall not average less than $1.25 per acre, exclusive of
improvements.
The Secretary of the Interior shall, after due advertisement for sealed
bids, sell such lands to the highest bidders for cash in tracts of
not exceeding 160 acres each at not less than the appraised value.
Settlers having improvements to the value of $50 or more on any of the
lands not mineral and occupied for agricultural purposes at the date
of the signing of this treaty, shall, after due proof under rules to
be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, be allowed to purchase
at the appraised value the smallest quantity of land to include their
improvements, not exceeding 160 acres each.
The expenses of survey and appraisement shall be paid out of the
proceeds of the sale of the lands, and nothing herein shall prevent the
Secretary of the Interior from selling to any responsible party for
cash all of the unoccupied portion of these lands in a body, for not
less than $800,000.
18. Any lands owned by the Cherokees in Arkansas or in States east of
the Mississippi River may be sold by their national council, upon the
approval of the Secretary of the Interior.
19. All Cherokees residing on the ceded lands desiring to remove to the
Cherokee country proper shall be paid by the purchasers the appraised
value of their improvements. Such Cherokees desiring to remain on the
lands so occupied by them shall be entitled to a patent in fee simple
for 320 acres each, to include their improvements, and shall thereupon
cease to be members of the nation.
20. Whenever the Cherokee national council shall so request, the
Secretary of the Interior shall cause the country reserved for the
Cherokees to be surveyed and allotted among them at the expense of the
United States.
21. The United States shall at its own expense cause to be run and
marked the boundary line between the Cherokee Nation and the States
of Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas as far west as the Arkansas River,
by two commissioners, one of whom shall be designated by the Cherokee
national council.
22. The Cherokee national council shall have the privilege of
appointing an agent to examine the accounts of the nation with the
United States, who shall have free access to all the accounts and books
in the Executive Departments relating to the business of the Cherokees.
23. All funds due the nation or accruing from the sale of their lands
shall be invested in United States registered stocks and the interest
paid semi-annually on the order of the Cherokee Nation, and applied
to the following purposes: 35 per cent. for the support of the common
schools of the nation and educational purposes; 15 per cent. for the
orphan fund, and 50 per cent. for general purposes, including salaries
of district officers. The Secretary of the Interior, with the approval
of the President, may pay out of the funds due the nation, on the
order of the national council, an amount necessary to meet outstanding
obligations of the Cherokee Nation, not exceeding $150,000.
24. Three thousand dollars shall be paid out of the Cherokee funds to
the Rev. Evan Jones, now in poverty and crippled, as a reward for forty
years' faithful missionary labors in the nation.
25. All bounty and pay of deceased Cherokee soldiers remaining
unclaimed at the expiration of two years shall be paid as the national
council may direct, to be applied to the foundation and support of an
orphan asylum.
26. The United States guarantee to the Cherokees the quiet and
peaceable possession of their country and protection against domestic
feuds and insurrection as well as hostilities of other tribes. They
shall also be protected from intrusion by all unauthorized citizens
of the United States attempting to settle on their lands or reside in
their territory. Damages resulting from hostilities among the Indian
tribes shall be charged to the tribe beginning the same.
27. The United States shall have the right to establish one or more
military posts in the Cherokee Nation. No sutler or other person,
except the medical department proper, shall have the right to introduce
spirituous, vinous, or malt liquors into the country, and then only for
strictly medical purposes. All unauthorized persons are prohibited from
coming into or remaining in the Cherokee Nation, and it is the duty of
the United States agent to have such persons removed as required by the
Indian intercourse laws of the United States.
28. The United States agree to pay for provisions and clothing
furnished the army of Appotholehala in the winter of 1861 and 1862 a
sum not exceeding $10,000.
29. The United States agree to pay out of the proceeds of sale of
Cherokee lands $10,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to
defray the expenses of the Cherokee delegates and representatives
invited to Washington by the United States to conclude this treaty, and
also to pay the reasonable costs and expenses of the delegates of the
Southern Cherokees.
30. The United States agree to pay not exceeding $20,000 to cover
losses sustained by missionaries or missionary societies, in being
driven from the Cherokee country by United States agents and on account
of property taken and destroyed by United States troops.
31. All provisions of former treaties not inconsistent with this treaty
shall continue in force; and nothing herein shall be construed as an
acknowledgment by the United States or as a relinquishment by the
Cherokee Nation of any claims or demands under the guarantees of former
treaties, except as herein expressly provided.
[Footnote 582: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV, p. 799.]