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Paper: The Daily Inter Ocean
Date: 1886-11-08
Headline: The Cherokee Nation. Annual Message of Principal Chief Bushyhead on the Affairs of the Cherokees.
[EDITED]
Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, Ind. T., Nov. 2.—That part of the message referring to citizenship is as follows:
Since my last annual message, the Supreme Court of the United States has confirmed the decision of the “Court of Claims,” that persons of Cherokee blood desiring citizenship in this Nation must be readmitted by the National Council as provided in the Cherokee constitution. There are two widely different classes of petitioners for citizenship whose claims await determination.
1. Those demanding citizenship as the recognition of a treaty right, viz., the negroes adopted in 1866.
2. Those seeking the privileges of citizenship as a favor. I am assured that the United States Government only wants to know who are really intruders in order to remove them, and I earnestly commend the whole subject to your immediate attention and action. The first class of petitioners is composed almost, if not entirely, of those colored persons claiming to be entitled under the ninth article of the treaty of 1866, but not found on the “authenticated roll” of citizens on file in this department, and therefore not acknowledged as citizens of the Cherokee Nation. In order to ascertain those of this class who are really entitled I submit for your consideration a letter from the honorable Commissioner of Indian Affairs dated June 22, 1886, and express my approval of the mode suggested therein for the determination of the rights of the colored claimants. The
FINDINGS OF THE JOINT COMMISSION
of both governments to be made final, as proposed, and all of the class described who fail to establish their rights to the satisfaction of such joint committee, or fail to submit their claims in due season, to be remove as intruders within the time to be agreed on by such commission.
There is substantial difference between the status, both of the Cherokee Nation and the United States, of these two classes. The colored are “claimants” indeed—they ask simply justice, if they come within the provisions of the treaty, and no favor. They demand to be acknowledged as already citizens by virtue of treaty guaranties which both parties to the treaty are equally bound to enforce. The other class of petitioners for citizenship can not be called “claimants” in the proper sense of the term, since no pledge of treaty guarantees them the right of citizenship. They are simply applicants for a favor which the Cherokee Constitution empowers the National Council to grant or refuse at its discretion. The first mentioned, the “Colored Claimants,” must be acknowledged or denied, as the case may be, by both parties to the treaty, making a joint commission necessary as proposed.
The second class, composed of former citizens who have forfeited their rights as such, either by taking reservations under the treaty, this deliberately severing all connection with the Cherokee Nation, or by voluntarily abandoning their rights under article 1 section 2 of the Constitution which governed them, and composed also of persons seeking the privileges by virtue of alleged Cherokee blood must submit their memorials solely to the National Council as provided to prove what they allege be treated in
THE KIND OF LIBERAL SPIRIT
that should actuate those of the same blood, considering all the circumstances, though without waiving in any degree the rights of acknowledged members of the Nation. Accordingly, while the National Council is not bound to admit or readmit any of the applicants—their right to citizenship having been forfeited long since by operation of the treaty or of our Constitution—yet, I recommend that a commission of three of the ablest and best men of the Nation be authorized to sit for a proper length of time after the adjournment of your present session, and that all such resident so-called claimants, who apply within a certain fixed time after the notice, and who shall be able satisfactorily to establish their identity with or descent from any person whose name may be found upon any authentic roll of Cherokees by blood, acknowledged by the Cherokee Nation, and taken prior to the year 1860, be declared by you to be readmitted under the Constitution after the finding of such fact, and declaration thereof by the commission. Further, that all residents upon pretense of such claim by descent who do not apply within the time prescribed, as well as those who shall be rejected by the commission for lack of the proof required, be declared intruders, and the United States requested to remove them in conformity with the sacred guarantees of our treaties.
Such a course will be liberal to them as well as safe to the Nation, if wisely and honestly carried out, and will be in accord also with the Constitution of the Nation and the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States.
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