Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/905

UNITED STA-rtlS V. PAYNE. 891 �in that country, but it bas not by any law changed the general policy. It may have cbnsidered that these tribes were not proper ones to bring in contact witb other Indians, more civilized. �What did the govemment mean by locating "freedmen thereon?" Let UB again go back to the history of the time when this treaty was made. We find that colored people were held in slavery in all the civilized tribes of the Indian Territory. Slavery was abolished there, as well as elsewhere in the IJnited States, by the emancipation proc- lamation of the president and by the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, adopted the thirteenth of December, 1865, and such abolition of slavery was recognized by these tribes in the several treaties made with them in 1866. The govemment was desirons of protecting these freedmen and Of securing them homes. It was not known how well the severg,l Indian tribes who had held them in elavery would observe their pledges to secure them the same rights they enjoyed. It was feared that prejudice growing ont of their former condition as slaves and of race would be so strong against them that they would not be protected by the Indians. The gov- emment had given them the boon of freedom, and it was in duty bound to secure it, in all that the term implied, to them. The gov- emment feared that to do this it might be necessary to settle them in a colony by themselves. This purpose of the govemment, should it become necessary, was manifested by the terms of the Choctaw treaty of April 15, 1866. Therefore, in making the treaty with the Semi- noles, it sought to provide a home for such freedmen as had been held in slavery by the Indians in the Indian Territory, should that necessity occur, to secure them in their rights. In the face of the Burrounding condition of things at the time this treaty was made, we must conclude the govemment meant these freedmen who had been slaves in the Indian Tefritory, and none others ; and these could only be settled on this land by the authority of and with the permission ■of the govemment. Colored persons who were never held as slaves in the Indian country, but who may have been slaves elsewhere, are like other citizens of the United States, and have no more right in the Indian country than other citizens of the United States. �Again, if this land is open to homestead or pre-emption settlement, it bas been so ever since the treaty of 1866 with the Seminoles, and yet the govemment bas never attached it to any land district. In perfecting title under the law the settler has to take certain prelim- inary steps. It has been the policy of the govemment, when lands were open to settlement, as soon afterwards as possible, to est^iblish ��� �