368 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
residence as permanent citizens of the nation. The increase of their 
numbers at length became so formidable and their influence upon the 
national polity and legislation of the Cherokees so great as to exeite 
the apprehension and jealousy of the latter. 
The policy of their removal therefore became a subject of serious 
consideration with the national council. This involved a question as 
to what were the essential prerequisites of Cherokee citizenship, and 
who of the objectionable class were entitled, on any score, to the 
privileges of such citizenship, as well as who were mere naked in- 
truders. Upon these points the national council assumed to exercise 
absolute control, and proceeded to enact laws for the removal of all 
persons, both white and colored, whom the council should declare not 
entitled to remain in the Cherokee country.! The action of the coun. 
cil in this respect was communicated to the Indian Department in the 
fall of 1874, through the United States agent for that tribe, coupled with 
a demand for the removal by the military force of the United States of 
all who had thus been declared to be intruders. The Department not 
being fully satisfied of the justice of this demand, detailed an inspector 
to proceed to the Indian country and make a thorough investigation of 
the subject. His report? revealed the fact that there were large numbers 
of people in that country who had been declared intruders by the national 
authorities, but who had presented to him strong ex parteevidence of their 
right to Cherokee citizenship, either by blood, by adoption, or under the 
termsof the 9th article of the treaty of 1866 defining the status of colored 
people. Affidavits in large numbers corroborative of the inspectors re- 
port continued to be filed in the Indian Department during the succeed- 
ing summer, from which it appeared that many persons belonging to 
each of the classes alluded to had applied to the courts or to the couneil 
of the nation for an affirmative ruling upon their claim to citizenship, 
but that in many instances such applications had been entirely ignored. 
In other cases, where the courts had actually affirmed the right 
of applicants, the council had arbitrarily and without notice placed 
their names upon the list of intruders and called upon the United 
States for their removal. In this situation of affairs the Indian De- 
partment advised® the principal chief of the Cherokees that the De- 
partment would neither remove these alleged intruders nor permit 
their removal.until the Cherokee council had devised a system of 
rules by which authority should be vested in the Cherokee courts to 
hear and determine all cases involving the citizenship of any person. 
These rules should be subject to the approval of the Secretary of the 

‘The persons affected by this action were comprised within four classes, viz: 
. White persons who had married into the tribe. 
. Persons with an admixture of Indian blood, through either father or mother, 
. Adopted persons. 
. Persons of African descent who claimed rights under the treaty of 1866, 
? February 15, 1876, 
3 October —, 1876. 
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