ESTATE OF ELI AYRES, ETC. FEBRUARY 18, 1901.-Ordered to be printed. Mr. TELLER, from the Committee on Claims, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany the amendment intended to be proposed by Mr. Sullivan to the bill (H. R. 13382) for the allowance of certain claims for stores and supplies reported by the Court of Claims under the provisions of the acts approved March 3, 1883, and March 3, 1887, and generally known as the Bowman and Tucker acts, and for other purposes.] Four reports in favor of this claim have been made to the House of Representatives, namely: Report No. 2959, by Judge Gifford, of the Committee on Indian Affairs in the Fifty-first Congress, which recommended the payment of the original claim ($155,200, with interest at 3 per cent per annum in land scrip at $1.25 per acre; House Report No. 2113, Fifty-second Congress, by Mr. Clover, of the Committee on Indian Affairs, and House Report No. 2149 of the same Congress, which recommended the reference of the claim to the Court of Claims, with authority to render judgment; House Report No. 1900 of the Fifty-third Congress, which made the same recommendation. A favorable report was made by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in the Fifty-fourth Congress (No. 1457) authorizing an appropriation of $58,158.46; by the Senate Committee on Claims in the Fifty-fifth Congress (Report No. 1599) for the same amount, and in the Fiftysixth Congress (Report No. 1610), from the same committee, recommended the appropriation of $155,200, which bill (S. 3513) is now on the Calendar. The Department of the Interior has also carefully investigated the subject-matter of this claim, finding the claimant entitled to relief substantially as provided in the pending bill, as appears from the report of Indian Commissioner Hiram Price of October 18, 1882, covering the whole history of the case, approved by the Secretary of the Interior in his transmittal of the same to Congress. The Supreme Court of the United States, as well as that of the State of Mississippi, have also in their adjudications upon the treaty rights of the Indians recognized the validity and justness of the claim. The undisputed facts, as shown by the record in this case, seem to be as follows: That Eli Ayres, in 1839, in good faith purchased and took 150 deeds in conformity with the requirements of the treaty made with the Chickasaw Indians in 1834, for 194 sections of land of the Chickasaw reservees under said treaty, and paid therefor $1.25 per acre, making an aggregate sum of $155,200, and that said Ayres was justly entitled to the approval of the deeds by the President, as provided for in the treaty. That the locations were made in accordance with the terms of the treaty and were valid in the Indian grantors of Ayres and vested in them the title in fee to the lands sold and conveyed by them to Ayres, and that the subsequent sale of the land by the Government and the patents issued to the purchasers thereof were absolutely void. That the Government, without authority of law, sold and patented 149 sections of the land deeded to Ayres by the reservees, and otherwise disposed of the remaining 45 sections as unlocated lands, without authority of law, for which said 45 sections Ayres had paid $36,000 to the reservees, his grantors. And that the Government thus took away from him the entire 194 sections of land which he had purchased as above stated. That it was owing to unauthorized restrictions placed upon the right of alienation by the Indians, as well as the erroneous interpretation of the treaties between the United States and the Chickasaw Nation by the Department, as has been determined by the courts, that the deeds given to Eli Ayres by his Indian grantors were not approved according to the terms of the treaty. The report of Judge Gifford shows that great pains were taken by him in the examination of the case, and the history, facts, and the law of the case are presented therein with distinguished ability. The following comprehensive summary taken therefrom as to the construction of the treaty by the courts, the regularity of the deeds from the Indian reservees to Eli Ayres, the evidence of the payment of the purchase price by the grantee, is worthy of careful consideration and is adopted and made a part of this report. It is as follows: Now, if the Indians from whom Ayres purchased had the title to their lands, then the first long step in establishing Ayres's claim has been taken. If the Indians had no title, the claim falls at once. And if the title had vested previous to the order of the Secretary referring the matter of the enrollment and selections to the commissioners provided in the treaty, then such order could in nowise divest or affect it. The whole question of title has been conclusively settled by the courts. The case of Wray v. Doe, 10 Smeede and Marshall (Miss.), 462, was a contest between the title claimed by one of these same reservees (Ho ya pa nubby), who had conveyed to Ayres, and the patentee who had subsequently purchased the same tract from the United States. The court had before it the record of the Land Office showing the selection and location on behalf of the Indian and the patent under which Mr. Wray claimed. The court says: "Under the treaty the chiefs of the Chickasaw Nation have the sole and exclusive right to determine what Indians are entitled to lands under the sixth article of the treaty. "The enrolling and placing the name of the plaintiff on the list of persons entitled to land under the sixth article of the treaty by the chiefs and his location by the register and receiver on a section of land is conclusive evidence of his being entitled to land under said article, and also of his title to such section of land. "The location of the reservee under the Chickasaw treaty on a section of land vests in such reservee a title to such land which can not be divested by any act of the Government of the United States or any of its officers." The court also says that "A sale of a section of land previously designated as the location of an Indian reservee under the Chickasaw treaty by order of the President of the United States or any officer of the Government would be unlawful and void." This decision of the supreme court of the State of Mississippi was rendered in 1848. It was reaffirmed by the same tribunal in the case of Hardin v. Ho ya pa nubby (same defendant as in other case), 27 Miss., 567, this decision being rendered in 1854. These two decisions of the Mississippi court were approved and confirmed in a decision coming up on exactly similar facts by the Supreme Court of the United States in Best v. Polk (18 Wall., 112). The conclusion of the courts in these several cases was that the treaty of 1834, by the force of its own provisions, conveyed the title to the Indians, and was nothing more nor less than a grant. In each case the Indian title was one of those here in question, and it was contested by a party holding a United States patent subsequently given. The court in each case held the absolute title to be in the Indian and the patent void. In the first case of Wray v. Doe Congress appropriated money to repay the amount paid by the patentee. (See 11 Stat., 514.) In Hardin v. Doe the executive department made similar restitution to the party claiming under the patent. (See Land Book 3, p. 300.) Thus all the Departments of the Government have recognized the binding force of the court decisions. As to the cases themselves, of course the decisions are res adjudicata. As to the other cases under consideration these decisions are stare decisis. They form a "rule of right," made by the highest courts, after due deliberation, which it would be a great hardship to disregard. We must therefore conclude that the Indians who undertook to convey to the claimant had the title to their several reservations, and that the subsequent attempt on the part of the United States to convey the same lands to other parties by patent was wholly nugatory and void. It is, however, a fact that those claiming under patents from the United States were permitted to take possession of the lands, and have continuously held them up to the present. The remaining considerations to which the committee addressed their attention were whether the complainant had paid over to the Indians a proper consideration for the lands in question, and whether he had been diligent in the prosecution of his claim. On the first of these points Mr. Ayres has made much more than a prima facie case, and nothing appears in the record or on file in opposition. The deeds themselves state consideration and were duly witnessed and executed. They each have attached a receipt for the full amount, at $1.25 per acre, duly signed by the grantor and attested by two witnesses. About twenty of the deeds were certified to by the agent, as he was officially required to do, that the consideration was a fair one and that the same had been paid. In addition to these evidences of the record the plaintiff filed the evidence of himself and one Dollarhide, showing that the compensation was a fair and proper one and that all the payments had been duly made. The credibility and reliability of both Mr. Ayres and Mr. Dollarhide are strongly certified to by Hon. Olin Wellborn, ex-member of Congress from Texas; Mr. Jo Abbott, of Texas; Hon. J. K. Jones, Senator from Arkansas; Hon. Thomas C. McRae, member of Congress from Arkansas, and Hon. C. R. Breckinridge, from the same State. The amendment is reported with the recommendation that it be adopted. |