872 • THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



jurisfliction is left to tlie Cherokee citizens involved and not to the United States 

 Court. This fact will appear plain to you by referring to Arts. 7 and 13 of the Cher- 

 okee Treaty of 1866. Art. 1, Sec. 7, of the Creek, Art. 7, Sec. 7, of the Seminole, Art. 8, 

 Sec. 8, of the Choctaw and Chickasaw, and Art. 13 of the Cherokee Treaty of 1866, 

 provide, substantially, that the United States court to be established shall have such 

 jurisdiction as Congress may confer, without interfering with the rights of self-gov- 

 ernment of these nations. Article 7 of the Cherokee Treaty of 1866, in defining the 

 jurisdiction of the United States courts over our country, provides, as before stated, 

 for civil jurisdiction only as between citizens of Canadian District and the rest of the 

 nation, leaving the matter entirely to the choice of the Cherokee litigants concerned, 

 but also leaving the jurisdiction of said court, as between citizens of the nation, and 

 citizens of the United States, just the same as the law then, in 1866, fixed it, by the 

 consent of the Indians, strictly confined to criminal proceedings. This definition con- 

 clusively shows that our people understood that the United States courts to be or- 

 ganized in our country should have, when so established, the same jurisdiction that 

 was then, in 1866, exercised by said court over our people, namely, criminal juris- 

 diction. The purpose of our people in agreeing to this court was to insure greater 

 protection ; for, at the time this court was provided for, our people were dragged be- 

 fore a foreign court and were tried by foreign juries at Fort Smith, Arkansas. If 

 our people had imagined that this court would be the means of annoying them by 

 civil suits, they never would have consented to its establishment. They would have 

 preferred remaining under the court of the western district of Arkansas, where only 

 criminal jurisdiction was provided for. It is a little singular that this civil jurisdic- 

 tion never grew to be so prominent a question until after the railroad companies 

 whose lines pass through our country had issued bonds to the enormous amount of 

 $16,400,000, predicated upon their so-called grants of our lands made by Congress in 

 1866, andfor the security of which these companies executed mortgages on our lands. 



These companies, as the proceedings in the " Patterson " investigation will show, 

 issued bonds and granted mortgages on the lands along the lines of their road from 

 Sedalla, Mo., through the Indian Territory, to Denison, Tex. These companies failed 

 in 1877, before the General Land Office, Interior Department, to make their land- 

 grants good, while they admit, through their attorney, Mr. Baker, that their eftbrts 

 in that direction were for the purpose of getting such an acknowledgment as would 

 enable them to establish suits for the recovery of their grants. 



Having failed before the Departments, they now evidently seek the establishment 

 of a court in the Indian Territory, with civil jurisdiction, to enable them to sue our 

 nations before that court to perfect these grants, and thus make good the bonds and 

 niortgages issued. 



We trust you will not gratify their desires, but that, if you should establish a court 

 in our country, you will confine its jurisdiction solely to criminal matters, as was un- 

 derstood by our nations when they negotiated our treaties of 1866. 



Another objectionable feature of this court proposition seems to be, that no one 

 will be a competent juror except a citizen of the United States. To this we object. 

 Every man should be tried by his peers, and we maintain that no one should be a 

 competent juror except citizens of the Indian Territory. 



2. To the next proposition for the allotment of lands, and which is foreign to the 

 court proposition, we emphatically object. 



None of the treaties made with the 36 tribes of our country provides for the allot- 

 ment of our lands, except those made with the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. 

 If we thought you would disregard our treaties we would not refer to them. But 

 they are all we now have to rely upon for our protection, and we cannot believe that 

 any Senator or Representative of the United States can be so lost to honor as to dis- 

 regard the most sacred pledges his Government can make to a weak people not able 

 otherwise to defend themselves. The principle involved in this proposition is sim- 

 ply one of good faith. You cannot allot our lands except by the consent and request 

 of onr nations previously given. 



