ROYCE. ] TREATY OF APRIL 27, 1868. 369 
Interior, to whom an appeal should also lie from any adverse decision 
of those courts. As there were a number of these intruders, however, 
who made no claim to the right of Cherokee citizenship, it was directed 
by the Interior Department, in the spring of 1877, that all who should 
not present prima facie evidence of such right should be summarily 
removed from the Territory. The main cause of difficulty, however, 
continuing unadjusted, the principal chief of the Cherokees asked the 
submission of the subject, from the Cherokee standpoint, to the 
Attorney-General of the United States for his opinion. This was done 
in the spring of 1879,' by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs through 
the Secretary of the Interior, wherein the former, alleging that the 
question submitted by the Cherokee authorities did not fully meet the | 
subject in dispute, and being desirous that a complete statement of the 
case should be presented to the Attorney-General, suggested three addi- 
tional inquiries for the consideration of that officer. These inquiries 
were, first, Have the Cherokee national authorities such original right 
of sovereignty over their country and their people as to vest in them the 
exclusive jurisdiction of all questions of citizenship in that nation with- 
out reference to the paramount authority of the United States? Second, 
Tf not, do they derive any such power or right by the provisions of any 
of the treaties beween the United States and the Cherokees? Third, 
Can they exclude from citizenship any of the Cherokees who did not 
remove under the provisions of the treaty of 1835 upon their removal 
to the Cherokee country as now defined by law? The reply’ of the 
Attorney-General was to the effect that it seemed quite plain in exe- 
cuting such treaties as those with the Cherokees, the United States 
were not bound to regard simply the Cherokee law and its construction 
by the council of that nation, but that any Department required to 
remove alleged intruders must determine for itself, under the general 
law of the land, the existence and extent of the exigency upon which 
such requisition was founded. 
One class of these so-called intruders, as previously suggested, was 
composed of colored people who resided in the Cherokee country prior 
to the war, either as slaves or freemen, and their descendants. 
The fourth article of the treaty of July 19, 1866, contained a provision 
setting apart a tract within the Cherokee country known as the 
Canadian district, for the settlement and occupancy of “all the Cherokees 
and freed persons who were formerly slaves of any Cherokee, and all 
free negroes not having been snech slaves who resided in the Cherokee 
Nation prior to June 1, 1861, who may within two years elect not to 
reside northeast of the Arkansas River and southeast of Grand River.” 
The fifth article of the same treaty guaranteed to such persons as 
should determine to reside in the district thus set apart the right to 
select their own local officers, judges, ete., and to manage and control 

1 April 4, 1879. 
2 December 12, 1879. 
5 ETH——24 
