sition results from the fact that the immigration laws of the United States-owing to doubt as to what portions, if any, apply to the Virgin Islands-were not enforced there to any extent while the islands were under the administration of the Navy Department from the time of their acquisition on January 17, 1917, to February 27, 1931, when they came under the Interior Department, and from that date to July 1, 1938. It was not until this last date that effective enforcement of the immigration laws of the United States began in those islands, which was shortly after the Solicitor of Labor had rendered an opinion that the Immigration Act of 1917, as well as that of 1924, is applicable to those islands, and enforceable by the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization and the Secretary of Labor.

Many of these aliens have intermarried with natives of the Virgin Islands and have children born therein. Perhaps the larger group who have thus entered and remained have come from the island of Tortola, a British possession not far from the Virgin Islands group and where there is no American consular officer. Some of the others have likewise come from places where there are no American consular officers. If the law were strictly enforced against these aliens they could not visit their homes and return to the Virgin Islands. They cannot secure reentry permits since under the present law such documents can be issued only to aliens lawfully resident in the United States, and they cannot secure visas because there is no American consular officer to which they can apply in their respective former places of residence. It would impoverish some of these people were they required to proceed to a place where an American consular officer is located, if indeed many of them could raise sufficient funds to make the trip. This does not mean that they are necessarily potential public charges; it is simply that their mode of living requires the possession on their part of very little ready cash, and generally their wages are such that when they have families to support there is a very small margin between earnings and expenditures.

Some of these aliens who are in continental United States and its insular possessions are within the present law which provides for their registration where they entered prior to July 1, 1924, and concerning whom no record of admission for permanent residence exists (8 U. S. C., sec. 106a, as amended by Public, No. 315, 76th Cong., 1st sess.). That law fixes July 1, 1924, because that is when our present so-called quota law became effective. However, the present registration act does not take care of the majority of those whom it is sought to reach in the Virgin Islands, because there are probably as many if not more who have entered between July 1, 1924, and July 1, 1938, than entered prior to that period.

CITIZENSHIP

S. 3582 makes provision for the first class of natives of the Virgin Islands referred to above by declaring that all natives of the Virgin Islands of the United States who are on the date of enactment of this bill residing in continental United States or any of its Territories or possessions and who are not citizens or subjects of any foreign country are citizens of the United States. This would be accomplished in section 1 of the bill by adding subsection (e) to section 1 of the act of February 25, 1927 (8 U. S. C., sec. 5b).

NATURALIZATION

S. 3582 proposes to make provision for the second class of persons discussed above-natives of the Virgin Islands residing outside continental United States, its Territories or possessions-by permitting their entry into the United States, its Territories or possessions, as nonquota immigrants, and by authorizing the natives of the Virgin Islands so admitted to become naturalized as American citizens without the necessity of filing a declaration of intention.

This purpose would be accomplished in section 2 of the bill by the repeal of section 2 of the act of June 28, 1932, and by the revival of section 1 of that act (8 U. S. C., secs. 204a, 204b). Section 2 of the act provided a 2-year time limitation upon the admission of natives of the Virgin Islands to the United States as nonquota immigrants. The repeal of section 2 and the revival of section 1 will permit natives of the Virgin Islands who are not citizens of the United States to be admitted as nonquota immigrants at any time. They will be afforded the shortened naturalization process by so amending section 2 of the act of February 25, 1927 (8 U. S. C., sec. 377a), as to remove the 1-year time limitation therein as to filing petitions for naturalization and to authorize all natives of the Virgin Islands admitted as nonquota immigrants, under the act of June 28, 1932 (8 U. S. C., sec. 204a), as revived by this bill, to the United States, Puerto Rico, the

8. Repts., 76–3, vol. 8- -26

Virgin Islands of the United States, or any Territory, to become citizens by full compliance with all the provisions of the naturalization laws except the filing of a declaration of intention. This amendment revises section 2 of the act of February 25, 1927, for this purpose, because the section became obsolete in 1928.

REGISTRATION PROVISIONS

The third class of persons mentioned above are taken care of by sections 4 and 5 of the attached draft bill. Section 4 extends the provisions of the Registration Act of March 2, 1929 (45 Stat. 1512), to all persons who entered the Virgin Islands prior to July 1, 1938, and who have resided in the Virgin Islands continuously since such entry. Section 5 exempts such aliens from the registry fee of $10 prescribed by that act. That fee would be a considerable hardship upon these aliens, considering their small earnings and the fact that they took up residence there without any reason to believe there were any immigration laws to comply with.

о

3

76TH CONGRESS 3d Session

}

SENATE

{

REPORT No. 1743

CLAIMS OF CHOCTAW AND CHICKASAW INDIANS FOR LEASED DISTRICT, OKLAHOMA

JUNE 3 (legislative day, MAY 28), 1940.-Ordered to be printed with an

illustration

Mr. THOMAS of Oklahoma, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany S. 2001]

The Committee on Indian Affairs to whom was referred the bill (S. 2001), authorizing an appropriation of $8,096,047.31, for the benefit of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Tribes of Indians of Oklahoma, in full satisfaction of their claims against the United States for compensation for lands known as the leased district, having considered same, report thereon with the recommendation that it do pass with the following amendments:

On page 1, line 4, strike out the word "Appropriation" and insert in lieu thereof the word "appropriated".

On page 1, line 5, change the figures "$8,095,763.31" to "$8,096,047.31".

The first amendment is to correct a typographical error. The second amendment is to correct an error in computation to make the figures conform to those submitted by the Court of Claims in its report to the Senate in response to Senate Resolution 478 (1st Cong.), dated January 9, 1939.

After receipt of this bill by your committee it was referred to the Secretary of the Interior for further consideration and report, and thereupon, under date of June 14, 1939, he submitted his report, attaching thereto the special findings of fact and conclusions made by the Court of Claims on January 9, 1939, pursuant to said Senate Resolution 478, of February 26, 1931.

The subject of this proposed legislation has been before Congress for many years. During the Seventy-first Congress your committee considered S. 3165 and after extensive hearings, submitted its report (S. Rept. No. 652) to the Senate, recommending its passage, thereafter the said bill passed both Houses of Congress, but that bill was, on

February 20, 1931, vetoed by the President (S. Doc. No. 280, 71st Cong. 3d sess.).

This bill seeks to authorize the appropriation of the sum of $8,095,763.31 for the benefit of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Tribes of Indians of Oklahoma, in full satisfaction of their claims against the United States for compensation for lands in Oklahoma known as the leased district, which were acquired by the United States from the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, such sum representing the amount by which the sums received by the United States from the sale of such lands exceeds the amounts heretofore paid to such Indians with respect thereto and the amounts heretofore gratuitously expended by the United States for the benefit of such Indians. Such sum when appropriated is to be placed to the credit of such Indians on the books of the Treasury Department, to be held in trust for such Indians, and bear interest at the rate of 4 percent per annum from the date of the enactment of the act, and such sum to be available for expenditure for the benefit of such Indians in the manner heretofore or hereafter provided by law. The purpose of the bill, in substance, is to authorize the appropriation of the net amount fixed by the Court of Claims as the value of the lands involved.

The fixing of such value by the Court of Claims was done in the "Special findings of fact" reported to the Senate in the court's case (Congressional No. 17641, decided January 9, 1939.) That case was filed in said court and the special findings of fact were made pursuant to the instruction of the Senate as expressed in Senate Resolution 478 (71st Cong. 3d sess.), at which time S. 3165 (71st Cong.) was then pending and being under consideration by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

The said resolution directed the court to inquire into the claims of the Indian nations for just compensation and to report the amount which in fairness and justice and under all the facts and circumstances the United States should pay them as fair compensation for the remainder of the leased district lands. In doing so, the court was directed to take into consideration the circumstances and conditions under which said lands were acquired by the United States and the purposes for which they were used and the final disposition thereof. To properly understand the report of the court and the claim upon which the report is based, it is necessary to briefly review the history of the facts and circumstances attendent upon the acquisition by the United States of these lands.

TREATY OF 1820

The Choctaw and Chickasaw Tribes of Indians lived originally in Mississippi and western Tennessee. The Choctaws owned some 15,000,000 acres of land in Mississippi. When Mississippi attained statehood in 1817, the United States wished to acquire the Choctaw lands for public entry. A treaty was consummated in 1820 with the Choctaws (II Kappler 191) whereby 4,150,000 acres of Choctaw lands in Mississippi were exchanged for approximately 25,000,000 acres of land in what was then the southwest corner of the United States, now in the State of Oklahoma. The southwest corner of the United States was officially determined 42 days after proclamation of the treaty with the Choctaws in a treaty with the Government of Spain (34 Ct. Cls.

100). The treaty with Spain ceded to that nation 6,589,440 acres of lands previously ceded to the Choctaws in exchange for Mississippi lands. This was done without consultation with, or authority of, the Choctaws.

TREATY OF 1825

Shortly after consummation of the treaty of 1820, white settlers began entering on the eastern border of the Choctaw lands in the West. That difficulty was overcome by a further treaty, in 1825, between the United States and the Choctaws (II Kappler, 211) whereby the Choctaws ceded to the United States what is now 10 Arkansas counties and parts of 10 more (Foreman, Indians and Pioneers, 172).

TREATY OF 1830 AND TITLE PATENT

The treaties of 1820 and 1825 did not effectuate the removal of the Choctaws from Mississippi in accordance with the avowed intention of the Government. In 1830 a further treaty was negotiated between the Government and the Choctaw Nation by the terms of which the Choctaws surrendered all of their remaining lands in Mississippi, amounting to 10,425,139 acres (Choctaw Nation v. U. S. 119 U. S. 1, 38). The Choctaws received no consideration for the cession of these lands. They were required to remove to their western lands forthwith.

Bills were introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate providing for Indian removal. These bills provoked one of the bitterest debates in the history of the Congress. Resolutions protesting the proposed legislation were addressed to Congress, and mass meetings were held in New England and other sections of the North in opposition to the proposed plan to evacuate the Indians. The legislation was enacted (4 Stat., 411). While it forced removal, it did, however, guarantee to the Choctaws a patent to them from the United States to all their western lands. The patent was issued March 23, 1842. That patent evidenced the vesting of fee simple title in the Choctaws to all their western lands, including the lands that were later designated the "leased district."

TREATY OF 1837

By a treaty negotiated in 1837 (11 Stat., 573), the Chickasaw Nation, for a valuable consideration, purchased an undivided interest in the western lands of the Choctaws. That interest is now recognized by all to be an undivided one-fourth interest. After this acquisition the Chickasaws were removed West.

TREATY OF 1855

Twenty-five years passed from the time of the treaty of 1830, and various matters came up for adjustment between the United States and the Choctaws and Chickasaws. One of those matters was the question of the western boundary of the Choctaw-Chickasaw lands. Another treaty was entered into, in 1855, between the United States and the Choctaws and Chickasaws (11 Stat., 611). That treaty, the treaty of 1855, set the western boundary of the Choctaw