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Report Relating to the
Enrollment of Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes
Report of Joseph W. Howell, of March 3, 1909, Relating to the Enrollment of
Citizens And Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes.
Department Of The Interior
Washington, D. C.
March 3. 1909.
The Honorable Secretary Of The Interior.
Sir: In compliance with your request I have prepared and now submit a report
concerning the subject of the enrollment of the citizens and freedmen of the
Five Civilized Tribes. In so doing I have given special attention to the claims
of various persons who allege that they are entitled to share in the lands and
money of said tribes. Recent developments have also made necessary the
consideration of the conditions, which have arisen since the closing of the
enrollment work on March 4, 1907.
The subject of enrollment, including the claims of these persons, has excited
renewed interest and attention by reason of numerous suits which have been
instituted in the courts, ns well as by the agitation in Congress and elsewhere
concerning the alleged rights of said persons.
In order to present the subject clearly it is my purpose:
(1) to describe the conditions which obtained in the Five Civilized Tribes prior
to and at the time the Government of the United States entered upon the work of
preparing rolls of said citizens and freedmen:
(2) to outline briefly the various acts of Congress and the agreements with the
several tribes under which the work was prosecuted;
(3) to explain in what respects said laws failed to accomplish the purpose for
which they were intended, owing to defects in the taws themselves and. in a
measure, to the methods of administration which were adopted:
(4) to describe the conditions which arose during the course of the enrollment
work and which obtained at its close: and
(5) to recommend such action as, in my opinion, should be taken in view of the
whole situation.
The statements which follow are based upon information received by me in various
ways and at different times in the discharge of my duties relating to Indian
matters, and. in order that my means of acquiring information in connection
therewith may be understood, I desire to say that my knowledge concerning the
work of the making of the rolls of said tribes was obtained, primarily, in the
preparation of decisions in citizenship cases in the office of the Secretary of
the Interior, and. later, in the preparation of opinions in the office of the
Assistant Attorney General for the Department of the Interior. I have been
employed in said offices since early in May, 1902 and have since then been in
close and continuous contact with all questions relating to citizenship in the
Five Civilized Tribes. During the last year I also made an extensive field
investigation of the subject and in so doing I made careful examination of the
citizenship records, both of the United States and the tribal governments, now
in the custody of the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, following which
I traveled extensively throughout the eastern portion of Oklahoma and
interviewed and examined many of the claimants referred to above as well as
numerous officials of the United States, and, wherever possible, many of the
prominent members of the tribes in question, taking particular pains to meet men
who would, presumably, be widely acquainted with the Indian people, such as
superintendents of public institutions, teachers, ministers of the gospel,
Indian interpreters, and Indian policemen.
Preliminary to taking up the subdivisions enumerated above some explanation is
necessary as to the character of the work of enrollment. It is probable that but
few people have, anything like a perfect idea of the importance and magnitude of
the work of enrolling the citizens and freedmen of said tribes. The importance
of this work was due, primarily, to the fact that nothing could be done toward
the dissolution of the tribes and the breaking up of the tribal system until the
completion of the rolls, for there could be no distribution of the lands and
moneys of said tribes until the persons entitled to share therein could be
definitely ascertained. The magnitude of the work is evident from the fact that
there were more than 100,000 persons whose rights were to be determined, and
that upon such determination depended the division of about 20,000,000 acres of
land and the distribution of funds which will embrace millions, perhaps
billions, of dollars.
The determination of the identity of the beneficiaries and the distribution of
this property has been likened unto proceedings incident to the administration
of a vast estate, including the ascertainment of the heirs and the distribution
of the property of the deceased. But unlike the administration of an ordinary
estate, the identification of the Indian beneficiaries made it necessary to
examine, not the laws of one jurisdiction alone, but instead, the laws of five
separate nations. More than this, the colossal task necessitated a careful study
not only of the statutes of those nations, but also their constitutions, and in
addition thereto, and above all, the several treaties which each tribe has
entered into with the United States, together with the various statutes which
our own Government has, independently of any action upon the part of the tribal
governments, enacted concerning the matter.
From the foregoing it will be readily appreciated that in the enrollment problem
there were presented, in a confusing and complicated degree, many questions
covering the whole field of law- international, public, and private-upon which
were dependent political as well as property rights, all deserving time,
patience, and legal discrimination of a high order for their solution.
I have called attention to these features of the subject to emphasize the
opinion that the work was of such a nature as to render it absolutely impossible
to prescribe an arbitrary time for its completion. Having once undertaken it, it
was incumbent upon the Government to discharge the duty in an orderly manner and
only after full consideration of the matter. Otherwise there could not fail to
result a train of errors which would necessarily cry out for correction for many
years to come. A memorandum of points discussed herein is inclosed as Exhibit A.
This brings me to the first of the divisions of the subject.
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Conditions In Indian Territory Prior To
The Making of the Rolls.
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Political and Social Conditions
which Followed Removal to the Indian
Territory and Subsequent Effect of
same upon Citizenship Matters
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Acts of Congress and Agreements with the
Various Tribes under which the Work of
Enrollment was Prosecuted
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Why the Acts of Congress Failed to
Accomplish the Purpose for Which they
were Intended
-
Conditions which Arose During the Course
of the Enrollment Work
- How the work was apportioned and
the law administered by the
Department of the Interior
- Condition of the tribal rolls
used by the Commission and
Commissioner to the Five Civilized
Tribes in preparing the final roll
- List of Choctaw, Chickasaw,
Choctaw-Chickasaw, Cherokee, and
Creek Rolls
- Unproved decrees and judgments
of the United States court upon
which the Commission to the Fire
Civilized Tribes based its decisions
and reports in Cherokee and in Creek
Citizenship cases
- Census cord records in the
office of the Commissioner to the
Fire Civilized Tribes
-
Statistics Gathered from the Records of
the Commission of the Five Civilized
Tribes
- Choctaw and Chickasaw cases
- Choctaw freedmen
- Chickasaw freedmen
- Mississippi Choctaws
- Percentage of rejected Choctaw cases
in which the heads of families claimed
one-quarter or more Choctaw Blood
- Percentage of Mississippi Choctaw
cases involving persons of mixed blood
- Practice of the Dawes Commission
respecting applications for enrollment
- Field investigation in the 15
district Indian agencies in eastern
Oklahoma
- Classes of cases meriting further
consideration on equitable grounds
-
Slavery in the Choctaw and Chickasaw
Nations
- Identified Mississippi Choctaws
who were not finally enrolled
because they failed to furnish proof
of removal to and settlement in the
Choctaw-Chickasaw country
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Action Which Should Be Taken To Complete
Unfinished Work. To Correct Obvious
Errors, And To Adjust Inequalities.
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Exhibit A
-
Exhibit A˝
-
Exhibit B
-
Exhibit C
-
Exhibit D
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Exhibit E
- Exhibit F
- Exhibit G, Under separate
binding, not in book
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Exhibit H1, H2, I
-
Exhibit J
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Facts Covering Meritorious Cases
- Class 1
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Anderson F. Cowling, Choctaw by
Blood
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Frank P. Morgan, Intermarried
Choctaw Citizen
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Frances E. Husbands, Choctaw
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Emily J. Zumwalt, et al, Choctaw
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Cases McPheteridge, Sledge, Gordon, Tapp,
Choctaws
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Daniel Sledge, Choctaw
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Abraham H. Nail, Choctaw
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William T. Stephens, Choctaw
- Class 2
- Virginia Savage,
Chickasaw
Notes About the Book:
Source: Five Civilized Tribes In Oklahoma, Reports of the Department of the
Interior and Evidentiary Papers in support of S. 7625, a Bill for the Relief of
Certain Members of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma, Sixty-second Congress,
Third Session, Published 1913, by the Department of the Interior, United States.
Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and then ocr'd. Minimal editing
has been done, and readers can and should expect some errors in the textual
output.
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