356 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
30/ north latitude, and by act of May 30, 1854,) the south boundary of 
Kansas was established at 37° north latitude, thus leaving this strip of 
country outside the limits of any organized State or Territory, and so 
it stillremains. This claim of the Cherokees was admitted by the Com- 
missioner of Indian Affairs at the time of the conclusion of the treaty of 
July 9, 1868, to be a valid one, and was inserted in the boundaries de- 
fined by that treaty. The treaty, however, failed of ratification, and it 
was afterwards determined by the executive authorities of the United 
States that at the date of the treaty of 1855 with the Cherokees the sov- 
ereignty of the United States extended only to the one hundredth 
meridian, and that the reaffirmation of the treaty guarantee of 1835 by 
subsequent treaties was not intended to enlarge the area of their ter- 
ritory, but simply as an assurance that the United States were fully 
conscious of their obligation to maintain the integrity of such guarantee. 
Consequently the Cherokee outlet was limited in its western protrac- 
tion to that meridian. 
DELAWARES, MUNSEES, AND SHAWNEES JOIN THE CHEROKEES, 
By the fifteenth article of the treaty of 1866 provision was made that, 
upon certain conditions, the United States should have the right to 
settle civilized Indians upon any unoccupied Cherokee territory east of 
96° west longitude. The material conditions limiting this right were 
that terms of settlement should be agreed upon between the Cherokees 
and the Indians so desiring to settle, subject to the approval of the 
President of the United States; also that, in case the immigrants 
desired to abandon their tribal relations and become citizens of the 
‘Cherokee Nation, they should first pay into the Cherokee national fund 
a sum of money which should sustain the same proportion to that fund 
that the number of immigrant Indians should sustain to the whole 
Cherokee population. If, on the other hand, the immigrants should 
decide to preserve their tribal relations, laws, customs, and usages not 
inconsistent with the constitution and Jaws of the Cherokee Nation, 
a tract of land was to be set apart for them by meies and bounds 
which should contain, if they so desired, a quantity equal to 160 acres 
for each soul. For this land they were to pay into the Cherokee 
national fund a sum to be agreed upon between themselves and the 
Cherokees, subject to the approval of the President, and also a sum 
bearing a ratio to the Cherokee national fund not greater than their 
numbers bore to the Cherokees. It was also stipulated that, if the 
Cherokees should refuse their assent to the location of any civilized 
tribe (in a tribal capacity) east of 96°, the President of the United 
States might, after a full hearing of tle case, overrule their objections 
and permit the settlement to be made. 
The Delawares were the first tribe to avail themselves of the benefits 
of the foregoing treaty provisions. Terms of agreement were entered 

1 United States Statutes at Large, Vol. X, p. 283. 
