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Terry Thompson
Stubblefield, M.C.R.
Terry Thompson
Stubblefield Et Al.
M. C. R. No. G258-M. C. K. 341.
July —. 189G. Application
made to Dawes Commission.
August 1, 1896. Application made to the
Choctaw council.
October 10, 1896. Admitted by the Choctaw
council.
January 6, 1897. Enrolled by the revisory
committee of the Choctaw council.
September 12, 1902. Hearing before the
commission at Muskogee, Okla., for the
enrollment of herself and children.
Rejected.
Statement of Facts
The decision of the
Secretary of the Interior, E. A. Hitchcock,
dated March 30, 1905, sets out the
following:
William C. Thompson, the grandfather of the
principal applicant, died August 31, 1840.
in the Choctaw Nation, a recognized citizen
thereof. While Mrs. Stubblefield was born in
Mississippi, she removed with her father,
Arthur F. Thompson, son of the said William
Thompson, to the Choctaw Nation. This
removal occurred when she was a child and,
as she states, when she was too young to
remember. As she was born about the year
1861, the removal must have taken place in
the early sixties. Her father, according to
the uncontroverted testimony, resided in the
Choctaw Nation until the time of his death,
the principal applicant herself residing in
said nation apparently until the time of her
marriage to William Stubblefield. a white
man. Soon thereafter, apparently as early as
1878. she removed to Texas, where she had
resided continuously for more than 20 years,
and was still residing al the time of the
hearing, namely, September 12, 1902.
In an opinion rendered March 3, 1905,
approved by the department the same day, the
Assistant Attorney General held, relative to
W. C. Thompson, that the recognition of him
and all those included in his petition of
August 1, 1896, by the Choctaw committee,
was within the powers of that body.
This petition of W. C. Thompson and the
enrollment under it by the Choctaw
authorities included this applicant. William
C. Thompson and all other persons in this
family, excepting this applicant, have been
finally enrolled and allotted in the Choctaw
Nation. This applicant has been excluded
solely upon the ground that she was a
nonresident in 1902. The same opinion of the
Secretary of the Interior quoted above also
contains the following:
While it appears that Mrs. Stubblefield was
recognized in the same manner as William C.
Thompson and that he is the same descent,
still, she was not a resident of the nation
at the time of her hearing, September 12,
1902, nor had she been a resident thereof at
any time during the last 20 years preceding
that date. No testimony has been furnished
showing that she retained property in the
nation or that it was her intention to
return to the Choctaw Nation and make it her
home.
Subsequent to the date of this decision
proof was filed with the department showing
conclusively that Mrs. Stubblefield at the
time of her marriage held valuable landed
interests under the tribal laws of the
Choctaw Nation and that at that time, with
the idea of maintaining tribal relations to
which she had been born, she and her husband
retained the same, although they removed
temporarily to the State of Texas. This
proof further shows that she retained this
and other property up until the time of
allotment and that one of her children, a
minor, resided in the nation a large part of
the time and was finally enrolled with
William C. Thompson, above named, who had
charge of the property of this applicant.
Statement of Council
This applicant has been
excluded upon a misconstruction of the law
which provided that a Choctaw Indian, to be
entitled to enrollment, should have, at some
time prior to the passage of the act of
1898, "established a residence therein." It
is very evident that this woman not alone
established a residence, but that she was
born to the allegiance of the tribe and that
she lived all of her younger days in the
nation and that when she removed she removed
temporarily, retaining property in the
nation, to which she expected to return. She
and her children, except Sarah T.
Stubblefield, already enrolled and allotted,
are plainly entitled.
Respectfully submitted.
Walter S. Field, Attorney for Claimants.
Cases of exceptional merit barred by reason
of the provisions of the act of May 31,
1900. the names of the applicants not
appearing on the tribal rolls.
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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