FITZPATRICK 



2192 



FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES 



but as English poetry. Mr. FitzGerald's writ- 

 ings include Euphranor, Polonius and Readings 

 in Crabbe; among his translations are Six 

 Dramas oj Calderon, Salomon and Absal and 

 Agamemnon. See OMAR KHAYYAM. 



FITZPAT'RICK, SIR CHARLES (1853- ), 

 a Canadian statesman and jurist, Chief Justice 

 of the Dominion after 1906. The city of 

 Quebec was his birthplace and his home for 

 over half a century. There he attended the 

 seminary and Laval University, from which he 

 was graduated in arts in 1873 and in law three 

 years later. In Quebec City he established 

 his reputation as one of the foremost criminal 

 lawyers in Canada. From 1879 to 1887 he was 

 Crown prosecutor for the city and county of 

 Quebec. He was counsel for the defense in 

 many famous trials, including that of Louis 

 Kiel in 1885, and for many years was also 

 professor of criminal law at Laval University.' 



Sir Charles entered political life in 1890 as 

 a Liberal member of the Quebec legislature, in 

 which he sat until 1896, when he entered the 

 House of Commons. He was Solicitor-Gen- 

 eral of the Dominion from 1896 to 1902 and 

 Minister of Justice from 1902 to 1906. After 

 his elevation to the Supreme Court in the 

 latter year he acted several times as admin* 

 istrator of the Dominion in the absence of 

 the Governor-General. In 1908 King Edward 

 VII appointed him one of the British members 

 of the Hague Peace Tribunal, and also made 

 him a member of His Majesty's Privy Coun- 

 cil. In 1907 he was created a Knight Com- 

 mander of the Order of Saint Michael and 

 Saint George, and in 1911 was given the Grand 

 Cross of that order. G.H.L. 



FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES, the name given 

 to the Indians belonging to the Cherokee, 

 Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole 

 nations in the former Indian Territory, now 

 a part of the state of Oklahoma. They were 

 given this name in government reports be- 

 cause of their readiness to adopt civilized 

 standards. 



These tribes were gathered mainly from the 

 Southern states east of the Mississippi River, 

 and were transferred to the reservation in 

 Indian Territory in 1838 and the years fol- 

 lowing. For many years they were allowed 

 practically to govern themselves, as though 

 they were small republics under United States 

 protection. Each tribe made its own laws, 

 elected its own officials and conducted its own 

 courts and schools. The tribal government 

 was similar to state governments, with a gov- 



ernor, or principal chief, at the head, and a 

 council composed of two houses, known by 

 the peculiarly-Indian names of house oj kings 

 and house of warriors. All land was owned, 

 not by individuals, but by the respective tribes 

 in common. 



After the War of Secession this tribal organ- 

 ization did not continue so successfully, and 

 the government came to see the necessity of 

 bringing the Five Civilized Tribes under its 

 direct control. The principal reason for this 

 was that many whites had come into the Ter- 

 ritory and were asking for a share in the gov- 

 ernment, from which, as non-Indians, they 

 were excluded. A contributing cause was that, 

 since United States laws were not in force in 

 the reservations, many criminals were evading 

 justice by escaping to its borders. A further 

 object, of course, was to meet the demand on 

 the part of the country in general that unused 

 lands be opened for settlement. 



In 1893 the government took the first step 

 toward the new order by appointing the Dawes 

 Commission to work among the Indians, per- 

 suading them to allow their property to be 

 divided among the individual members of the 

 tribe and to accept United States citizenship. 

 This work was carried on with success. In 

 1897 Federal courts superseded the old Indian 

 courts, and the following year Congress pro- 

 vided, through the Curtis Act, for a commis- 

 sion to take the census of each tribe and to 

 make fair division of its lands. The enroll- 

 ment was finished in 1907, showing nearly 

 75,000 heirs to the vast estate of twenty mil- 

 lion acres. It required several more years, 

 however, to make the allotments of land. The 

 division has left many of the Indians extremely 

 wealthy, for their holdings include not only 

 very fertile farming land, but valuable oil and 

 coal fields. This wealth has been the cause 

 of much intermarriage between whites and 

 Indians, so at the present time only about a 

 third of the members of the Five Civilized 

 Tribes are full-bloods. The 1910 census gave 

 the total membership of the tribes as 58,405. 



In order to protect the Indians and their 

 property from unscrupulous people, Congress 

 arranged for all lands to be leased or sold 

 tinder the supervision of a local bureau of 

 administration called the Union Agency. This 

 in turn is under the control of the Department 

 of the Interior. Officials chosen by the Indians 

 themselves have a certain voice in property 

 transactions. The Five Tribes have special 

 schools, but wherever possible the children at- 



