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of July 1, 1902, is known as the Choctaw-Chickasaw supplemental agreement and closed in all important particulars this long and somewhat furious contest. In the end, by virtue of this agreement, Mississippi Choctaw Indians identified under the provisions of section 21 of the act of June 28, 1898 (Curtis Act), might at any time within six months after the date of their identification by the commission make bona fide settlement within the Choctaw country, and upon proof of the same within one year after the date of identification should be enrolled as a Mississippi Choctaw, and upon approval of the rolls by the Secretary of the Interior became entitled to the same rights, privileges, and allotments of lands as the members of the Choctaw Nation. No application was to be received after six months from the passage of the act, and the commission was specifically directed to enroll'all full-blood Mississippi Choctaw Indians and descendants of any Mississippi Choctaw Indians, whether of full or mixed blood, who received a patent of land under the said fourteenth article of said treaty of 1830 who had not moved to and made bona fide settlement in the Choctaw-Chickasaw country prior to June 28, 1898'. All the aforesaid Mississippi Choctaw Indians were to be carried upon a separate roll.

"The final disposition of all Choctaw matters was provided for in the legislation of April 26, 1906, 34 Stat. L., 137, providing for enrollment of the minors and descendants of deceased Indians and covering certain contingencies arising from death of a duly enrolled Indian."

The difficulty which Congress encountered with reference. to the Mississippi Choctaws was not so much the question of their right to enrollment as members of the Choctaw Nation, as was the question of their identification and their hereditary and treaty qualifications for enrollment. The Dawes Commission and the Choctaw Nation were startled over the vast number of applicants claiming the right to enrollment under the treaty of 1830. The legislation which culminated in granting the right to enrollment, by its terms, restricted it, not only in accord with a legislative purpose so to do, but in agreement with the Choctaw Nation that such a course accomplished justice to all concerned. There is, we think, no room for doubt that Congress in the beginning intended to recog nize the right of the Mississippi Choctaws; the factor which prolonged the accomplishment of the right was doubt as to the number of Indians that were to be included.

Opinion of the Court

The plaintiff says that the right of enrollment granted to Mississippi Choctaws conferred no other interest in the property of the Choctaw Nation than a right to receive a landed allotment equal in extent and value to that given an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation. To sustain the contention a differentiation is sought to be established between the rights of citizenship and the rights of members of an Indian nation. In the former it is said political rights only are bestowed; in the other, not only political but property rights attach. The contention is not a new one; it has been advanced in other Indian cases.

The plaintiff recites and analyzes in detail the history of the Indians involved, the treaties concluded by them, and the legislation resulting in the enrollment of the Mississippi Choctaws as indicative of a clear intent to restrict their acquired rights to an allotment of land only, without the right to any per capita distribution of the common funds of the nation. Reference to this source of rights is of course an admission that no positive declaration of either a treaty or law of Congress definitely establishes it. With this contention we are unable to agree. Putting aside all consideration of moral or equitable principles involved, and adjudicating the issue upon the record in the light of established precedents, and what was as a matter of fact actually done, we think Congress intended to grant to Mississippi Choctaws all the rights incident to membership in the Choctaw Nation.

Resorting as the plaintiff does to the history of the transaction, we find in 1830 an extensive Indian tribe occupying a large area of lands in the State of Mississippi. The State and the United States desire to accomplish its peaceable removal to the West to make way for white settlers. A treaty is essential and one is concluded after conferences and councils, and in order to bring about harmony and do justice to a considerable number of Indians who wish to remain in the State, article XIV is agreed to and inserted in the treaty.

Article XIV of the treaty is significant in meaning. Tribal Indians were loath to expatriate themselves from the tribe. Setting forth a way in which it might be done was to say the least novel and experimental. To leave open a way by which the Indians did not lose their citizenship in the tribe was not

Opinion of the Court

only consonant with Indian tradition but in direct harmony with the primary purpose of the treaty which was to accomplish the removal of all the members of the tribe. To leave a considerable number of tribal Indians in a State hostile to their presence, without the means of rejoining the tribe, was, we think, never contemplated by either the Indians or the treaty makers.

The plaintiff emphasizes alleged inequities accruing out of the treaty of 1830, and argues that it was never intended to vest title to lands in Mississippi in the Mississippi Choctaws and give them in addition membership in the nation west if they removed to the reservation; that to do so increases the privileges of the Mississippi Indians by giving them a larger landed estate than the Choctaw Indians who removed to the West and also points out the amount of per capita payments the Mississippi Choctaws received. We need not discuss the matter of allotments; this issue disappears from the case. Congressional legislation settles it, and as to claimed inequities, the case of the United States v. Mille Lac Indians, 229 U. S. 498, 500, settles it. The court is limited to the terms of the treaty and acts of Congress. In the Mille Lac case the Supreme Court, speaking of the jurisdictional act, said:

"Nor does it contemplate that recovery may be founded upon any merely moral obligation, not expressed in pertinent treaties or statutes, or upon any interpretation of either that fails to give effect to their plain import, because of any supposed injustice to the Indians."

This case is to be decided upon the single issue, i. e., whether the legislation of Congress, which admittedly granted to Mississippi Choctaw Indians landed allotments out of the nation's reservation, includes within its scope and intent a grant of membership in the nation to the Mississippi Choctaws which admittedly carries with it a right to a per capita share of the common funds of the same. The mere statement is a complete demonstration of the fact that the acts of Congress authorizing the enrollment of Mississippi Choctaws emanated from the provisions of article XIV of the Dancing Rabbit Creek Treaty of 1830. It was this article of the treaty which reserved to Mississippi Choctaws

Opinion of the Court

"the privilege of a Choctaw citizen." It was upon this article that the persistent agitation of their rights in the nation was based, and upon which appeals were made to Congress to enact the legislation which granted enrollment. The initiatory claim of the Mississippi Choctaws to the right of enrollment upon the nation's rolls was a legal one, and the congressional recognition received was, we think, intended to grant it as claimed.

With the above in view we think it in nowise essential to discuss the many extraneous issues raised in plaintiff's brief. What was the claim of the Mississippi Choctaw Indians and what was the extent of the rights granted them by Congress? In 1893 and the years following, Congress was engaged in dividing the estate of the Choctaw Indians among those entitled to receive it. It was an extensive estate of more than sufficient proportions to give to each Indian entitled a quantity of land ample for his livelihood and needs, and leave a generous surplus to be converted into cash. The landed estate was not all the nation possessed; accumulated funds from various sources stood to its credit.

What the Mississippi Choctaws wanted was their share of this estate. There was but one way to obtain it in view of the existing situation, and that was to secure the right to be enrolled as citizens and members of the Choctaw Nation. The fact that Mississippi Choctaws were enrolled upon a separate roll augurs nothing. The act which gave the right to enrollment established conditions to be met and necessitated segregation. A separate roll accomplished no more. It did not work to diminish or increase their interests, everything else being equal.

So long as aboriginal tribal organization prevailed, the legal distinction between political and property rights in the tribal property was decidedly insignificant, if it obtained at all. In the very early history of the race the marriage of an Indian woman to a white man, or a white woman to an Indian, must have been infrequent. Later on, as the contacts of the race with the white settlers became more frequent and intimate, intermarriages multiplied, and due to this fact the Indian tribes themselves first set up a code to govern

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the rights of the whites who thus came into the tribe, and from then on a distinction between property rights and the right to reside upon the reservation obtained, and in later years gave rise to legislation upon the subject, and to litigation as well. Red Bird v. United States, 203 U. S. 76, 25 Stat. 392.

As Indian reservation lands became more valuable and the race advanced in civilization, tribal organization became more definite. Written constitutions and laws were adopted by tribal legislative bodies modeled usually upon State and national political organizations and the distinction between a native of the tribe and one who came into it, though foreign thereto by birth, became the subject of positive laws, generally discriminating as to a foreigner, be he white or Indian. In other instances when two distinct tribes were united or placed upon the same reservation, the proceedings to effect the same provided as to the respective property rights of each in both the landed estate and communal funds. The Negro slaves of Indian tribes were not members of the same. The adoption of one into a tribe did not of itself confer rights of property. No doubt exists that Indian laws and tribal tradition provided for the property rights of full-bloods upon a different basis from those not members of the race and those of half or lesser degree of Indian blood. In this case the treaty of June 22, 1855 (11 Stat. 611), between the Choctaws and Chickasaws exemplifies the principle we state.

In 1830 the United States was negotiating with a cohesive tribe of native Indians. The fact has not been traversed that all of them were citizens, residents and members of the tribe, each entitled to tribal rights upon an equal basis. The necessity for any provision discriminating as to their property rights grew out of the attachment of certain individual members of the tribe to their native habitat. The Indians and the United States were in agreement that a right to remain in Mississippi should be granted, with an express reservation that those who did remain might, under the conditions named, regain the exact tribal status quo that existed on the date the treaty was concluded. The only property loss to be suffered by those who did remain was a denial of participation in the annuities provided for in the treaty.