152 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE (kth.ann.19 



tiiiiilly (Icfidi'd iidver.scly three years Inter on appeal to the Supreme 

 Court.' 



In IScSy the Cherokee femaU^ .seminary wa.s completed at Tahleqiiah 

 at a cost of over $60,000, supplementing the work of the male sem- 

 inary, built some years before at a cost of $90,000. The Cherokee 

 Nation was now appropriating- annuall_v over $80,000 for school pur- 

 poses, including- the support of the two seminaries, an orphan asj'lum, 

 and ovpi- one hundred primary .schools, besides which there were a 

 nunibci- of mission schools." 



For a number of years the pressure for the opening of Indian terri- 

 tory to white .settlement had been growing in strength. Thousands 

 of intruders had settled themselves upon the lands of each of the 

 five civilized tribes, where they remained upon various pretexts in 

 spite of ixrgent and repeated appeals to the government by the 

 Indians for their removal. Under treaties with the five civilized 

 tribes, the right to decide citizenship or residence claims belonged to 

 the tribes concerned, but the intruders had at last become so numerous 

 and strong that they had formed an organization among tliemselves to 

 pass upon their own claims, and others that might be submitted to 

 them, with attorneys and ample funds to defend each claim in outside 

 courts against the decision of the tribe. At the same time the G(>\- 

 ernment policy was steadily toward the reduction or complete breaking 

 up of Indian reservations and the allotment of lands to the Indians in 

 severalty, with a view to their final citizenship, and the opening of 

 the surplus lands to white settlement. As a part of the same policy 

 the jurisdiction of the United States courts was gi'adually being 

 extended over the Indian country, taking cognizance of many things 

 hitherto considered by the Indian courts under former treaties with 

 the United States. Against all this the Cherokee and other civilized 

 tri))es protested, but without avail. To add to the irritation, com- 

 panies of armed "lummers" were organized for the express purpose 

 of invading and .seizing the Cherokee outlet and other unoccupied 

 portions of the Indian territory — reserved l»y treaty for future Indian 

 settlement — in defiance of the civil and military power of the Gov- 

 ernment. 



We come now to what seems the beginning of the end of Indian 

 autonomy. In 1889 a commission, afterward known as the Cherokee 

 Commission, was appointed, under act of Congress, to ''negotiate 

 with the Cherokee Indians, and with all other Indians owning or 

 claiming lands lying west of the ninety -sixth degree of longitude in 

 tht^ Indian territory, for the cession to the United States of all their 

 title, claim, or interest of every kind or character in and to said 

 lands." In August of that year the commission made a proposition to 



1 Commissioner J. D. C. Atkins, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. xlv, 1886, and p. l.vxvii. 1887. 

 '-.\gent L. E. Bennett, in Report of Indian Commissioner, p, 93, 1890. 



I 



