Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 7.djvu/21

INDIAN TREATIES. 11 perversion of their spirit, meaning and terms, contrary to the ihjunction of the law under which the court acts, which makes the stipulations of any treaty, the laws and ordinances of Spain, and these acts of congress, so far as either apply to this case, the standard rules for its decision. Ibid. The treaties with Spain and England, before the a uisition of Florida by the United States, which guarantied to the Seminoheqlndians their lands according to the right of property with which they possessed them, were adopted by the United States; who thus became the protectors of all the rights they had previously enjoyed, or could of right enjoy under Great Britain or Spain, as individuals or nations, b any treaty, to which the United States thus became parties in 1803. Ihid. The Indian right to the lands as property, was not merel of possession, that of alienation was concomitant; both were equally secured, protected and guarantied by Great Britain and Spain, subject only to ratification and confirmation by the license, charter or deed from the governor representing the king. Such purchases enabled the Indians to pay their debts, compensate for their depredations on the traders resident among them to provide for their wants; while the were available to the purchasers as payment of the considerations which at their expense had been received by the Indians. It would have been a violation of the faith of the ovemment to both, to encourage traders to settle in the province, to put themselves and property in the power of the Indians, to suffer the latter to contract debts, and when willing to pa them by the only means in their power, a cession of their lands, withhold, an assent to the purchase, which, by their laws or municipal regulations, was necessary to vest a title. Such a course was never adopted by Great Britain, in any of her colonies, nor by Spain in Louisiana or Florida. Ibid. The laws made it necessary, when the Indians sold their lands, to have the deeds presented to the governor for confirmation. The sales by the Indians transferred the kind of right which they possessed; the ratification of the sale by the governor, must be regarded as a relinquishment of the title of the crown to the purchaser; and no instance is known where plerfmission to sell has been “ refused, or the rejection of an Indian sale." 1 . The colonial charters, a great portion of the individual grants by the proprietary and royal governments, and a still greater portion by the states of the Union after the revolution, were made for lands within the Indian hunting-grounds. North Carolina and Virginia to a great extent paid ' their officers and soldiers of the revolutionary war by such grants, and extinguished the arrears due the army by similar means, It was one of the great resources which sustained the war, not onl by those states, but by other states. The ultimate fee, encumbered with the right of Indian occupancy, was in the crown previous to the revolution, and in the states of the Union afterwards, and subject to grant. This right of occupancy was protected b the political power, and respected by the courts, until extinguished, when the patentee took the encumbered fee. So the supreme court and the state courts have uniformly held. Clark v. Smith, 13 Peters, 195.