.MTA2NA.NzIyMTk

obligations to individuals - first branch - commission under the 17th article

which they knew to be so incompetent as necessarily to exclude a vast portion of them from any possibility of indemnification. The experience of the Commission proves how well the Indians judged. But, in endeavouring to avert the consequences of the under estimate, by authorizing payments to certain classes of claimants, beyond the sum unclear by the Treaty for those classes, has the commission dealt fairly with such as appeared before it, - considerately towards such as did not; - and has it actually made any material advance towards the satisfactory & final settlement of those portions of the Cherokee question, for which it was created? I fear, from the best information I can gather, that all these questions must be answered in the negative; - because I find many strong and strongly supported charges against the manner in which it has been conducted. These may be summed up as follows: 1st: That Cherokees, under the various heads of unclear, reservations & improvements, received vast amounts, without proper verification of the validity of their title to them, merely because they had favoured the Treaty. 2d: That other Cherokees, because adverse to the Treaty, were sometimes entirely,