USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. II > Part 48
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was reserved by the government. This was the same as its pres- ent boundaries.
In June, 1868, a bill for the formation of the Territory of Wyoming was introduced in the United States senate. The name of this territory was at first "Lincoln," but after long discussion, and without disparagement to the "Great Emancipator," it was finally determined to cling to the custom of naming the states with some Indian designation. The name "Wyoming" came directly from a town of that name in Pennsylvania, and indirectly from the Indians. During the consideration of this bill, Mr. Yates, of Illinois, said, "Dakota Territory which comprises almost all the proposed Territory of Lincoln ( Wyoming), is composed of two immense areas almost distinct from each other ; more dis- tinct than the territories of Wisconsin and Ilipois, of Missouri and lowa, for the latter states join each other continously in their whole breadth, while the two divisions of Dakota only touch each other for about one quarter of the extent of the Ter- ritory, north and south, for only about two degrees on the one Inin- dred and fourth meridian of west longitude. The eastern division is nearly four hundred miles square, extending from latitude forty three degrees north to latitude forty-nine degrees north, and from longitude ninety-six and some minutes west to longitude one hundred and four west. In this area and near the eastern bound- ary is Yankton, the capital of the territory. The other area extends from latitude forty-one degrees north to latitude forty-five degrees north, and from longitude one hundred and four degrees west to longitude one hundred and eleven degrees west, being three form- dred and fifty miles long and three hundred wade, and out of this latter area it is proposed to constitute the Territory of Lincoln." Ile stated that the bill detached a small portion of the Territory of Utah, and attached it to the proposed Territory of Wyoming, upon the tract being Fort Bridger. It also took a strip from Idaho and attached it to Wyoming Territory.
The boundaries defined in the Wyoming bill saw many changes. The territory had to be cut wholly from surrounding territories, and various objections were introduced. The language in the original bill was as follows: "That the territory now known as Dakota lying west of the one hundred and fourth degree of west longitude, be, and the same is hereby, organized into a temporary government by the name of the Territory of Wyoming." It was moved to amend this boundary by striking out this language and inserting the following: "That the territory of the United States described as follows: Commencing at the intersection of the twenty-seventh meridian of west longitude from Washington
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with the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, and running thence west to the thirty- fourth meridian of west longitude, thence south to the forty-first degree of north latitude, thence east to the twenty- seventh meridian of west longitude, and thence north to the place of beginning, be and the same is hereby, organized into a tem- porary government by the name of the Territory of Wyoming."
Provision for a territorial government was definitely made for the Territory of Wyoming by act of congress approved July 25, 1868, the following being the boundaries: "That all that part of the United States described as follows: Commencing at the intersection of the twenty-seventh meridian of longitude west from Washington with the forty-fifth degree of north latitude and running thence west to the thirty fourth meridian of west longi- tude; thence south to the forty-first degree of north latitude; thence cast to the twenty-seventh meridian of west longitude; and thence north to the place of beginning, be, and the same is hereby, organized into a temporary government by the name of the Ter- ritory of Wyoming." The government reserved the usual rights to manage the Indians, and to divide the territory or attach por- tions of it to other territories. The Territory of Wyoming was carved out of the limits of Dakota Territory, and the laws of the latter were to remain in force until repealed by those of the new territory. The enabling act was to be in full force and effect from and after the time when the necessary officers should be appointed and be duly qualified. The boundaries have since beep the same, except slight changes at the reservations.
The act of July 10, 1890, provided for the admission of the State of Wyoming into the Union, and gave & the f 'loving boundaries: "That the said state shall consist of all the turntory included within the following boundaries, towit: Commencing at the intersection of the twenty-seventh meridian of longitude west from Washington with the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, and running thence west to the thirty-fourth meridian of west longi- tude; thence south to the forty-first degree of north latitude ; thence cast to the twenty-seventh meridian of west longitude; and thence north to the place of beginning : Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall repeal or affect any act of Congress relating to the Yellowstone National Park, of the reservation of the Panik as now defined, or as may be hereafter defined or extended, or the power of the United States over it."
By the act of March 19, 1872, the president was authorized to cooperate with Great Britain in the appointment of a joint com- mission for determining the boundary line between the United States and the British por sessions between the Lake of the Woods
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and the Rocky mountains in accordance with the plans prepared by Gen. A. A. Humphreys, chief of government engineers. The sum of fifty thousand dollars was appropriated to meet this expense. The act of March 3, 1873, appropriated thirteen thou- sand eight hundred fifty dollars for the survey of the western boundary of the Territory of Wyoming, estimated a distance of two hundred seventy-seven miles; and the sum of two thousand four hundred dollars for the survey of the southern boundary of Colorado between the twenty-fifth and the twenty-sixth meridi- ans, estimated sixty miles in length. The act of June 10, 1872, ap- propriated the sum of twenty-two thousand two hundred dollars for the survey of the southern boundary of Wyoming, an estimated distance of three hundred seventy miles ; also appropriated eight thousand four hundred dollars for the survey of the two hun dred ten miles of the western boundary of Kansas; also the sum of eight thousand eight hundred dollars for the survey of the northern boundary of Nebraska, a distance of about two hundred twenty miles; also the sum of ninety-eight thousand dollars to complete the survey of the boundary of the Indian country between the ninety-sixth and the ninety-eighth meridians of west longitude, i. e., west from Greenwich. For the survey of the boundary between the United States and the British possessions from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky mountains pursuant to the act of March 19, 1872, there was appropriated by the act of June 11, 1874, the sum of one hundred fifty thousand dollars to be immediately available from and after the passage of the act.
There was appropriated by congress in 1877 de sum of even thousand dollars for the survey of the artem been lary of Www. ming, an estimated distance of one hundred and thirty nine miles; for retracting the boundary line between Arkansas and Indian Territory, estimated one hundred and ninety miles, the sum of nine thousand nine hundred dollars. Of the fifty thousand dol- lars appropriated for the survey of the international line from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky mountains, there was an unex- pended balance of fifteen thousand nine hundred ninety-two dol- lars and thirty-six cents. Colorado was proclaimed a state by President Grant on August 1, 1876, and has since been called the "Centennial State." For the survey and marking of the boundary line between Colorado and Utah Territory, congress appropriated in 1878 the sum of fifteen thousand dollars ; and the following year appropriated twenty thousand dollars for the sun- vey of the northern boundary of Wyoming, being the forty-fifth parallel of latitude between the twenty-seventh and the thirty-
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fourth meridians of west longitude. A convention to relocate the boundary between Mexico and the United States west of the Kio Grande was concluded July 29, 1882. This line had been estab- lished by the treaties of February 2, 1848, and December 30, 1853. To complete the survey of the boundary between the territories of Dakota and Montana, an estimated distance of two hundred and eighty miles, there was appropriated in 1885 the sum of eight thousand four hundred dollars ; and on the same date for remark- ing the boundary between the State of Colorado and Utah Territory, a distance of about two hundred ten miles, the sum of six thousand three hundred dollars. A convention touching the international boundary line between the United States and Mex- ico where it follows the bed of the Rio Grande and the Rio Colu- rado, was concluded at Washington November 12, 18844, and proclaimed September 14, 1886.
The people of Oklahoma, by the act of May 2, 1890, were author- ized to form a temporary government to be called the Territory of Oklahoma and were given the following boundaries: "That all that portion of the United States now known as the Indian territory, except so much of the same as is actually occupied by the five civilized tribes, and the Indian tribes within the Quapaw Indian Agency, and except the unoccupied part of the Cherokee Outlet, together with that portion of the United States known as the Public Land Strip, is hereby erected into a temporary govern- ment by the name of the Territory of Oklahoma. The portion of the Indian territory included in said Territory of Oklahoma is bounded by a line drawn as follows: Commencing at a point where the ninety-eighth meridian curses the Kul tiver, thence by said meridian to the point where it crosses the Canahan river ; thence along said river to the west line of the Seminole country : thence along said line to the north fork of the Canadian river; thence down said river to the west line of the Creek country ; thence along said line to the northwest corner of the Creek coun- try; thence along the north line of the Creek country to the ninety-sixth meridian ; thence northward by said meridian to the southern boundary line of Kansas; thence west along said line to the Arkansas river : thence down said river to the north line of the land occupied by the Ponca tribe of Indians, from which point the line runs so as to include all the lands occupied by the Ponca, Toukawa, Otec and Missoni, and the Pawnee tribes of Indians, nutil it strikes the south line of the Cherokee Outlet, which it follows westward to the cast line of the State of Texas ; thence by the boundary line of the State of Texas to the point of
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beginning ; the Public Land Strip, which is included in the said Territory of Oklahoma, is bounded cast by the one hundredth meridian, south by Texas, west by New Mexico and north by Colorado and Kansas. Whenever the interests of the Cherokee Indians in the land known as the Cherokee Outlet shall have been extinguished and the President shall make proclamation thereof, said outlet shall thereupon and without further legislation, become a part of the Territory of Oklahoma. Any other lands within the Indian territory not embraced within these boundaries shall here- after become a part of the Territory of Oklahoma, whenever the Indian nation or tribe owning such lands shall signify to the United States in legal manner its assent that such lands shall so become a part of said Territory of Oklahoma, and the President shall thereupon make proclamation to that effect. Congress may at any time hereafter change the boundaries of said territory, or attach any portion of the same to any other state or territory of the United States without the consent of the inhabitants of the Territory hereby created." The Indians within the boundaries of Oklahoma Territory were to remain under the control and pro- tection of the government. For judicial purposes, such part of the Cherokee Outlet as was not thus embraced within the Ter- ritory of Oklahoma was attached to the latter. In the creative act, it was further said, "That inasmuch as there is a controversy between the United States and the States of Texas as to the owner- ship of what is known as Greer county, it is hereby expressly provided that this act shall not be construed to apply to said Greer county until the title to the same has been adjudicated and determined to be in the United States" and the att rady gamal was authorized to commence and prosecute a suit against the State of Texas for "the tract of land lying between the North Fork and South Fork of the Red river where the Indian territory and the State of Texas adjoin, east of the one hundredth degree of longitude, and claimed by the State of Texas as within its boundary and a part of its land and designated on its map as Greer county."* It will be observed that the public land strip was thus made a part of the Territory of Oklahoma, but the Cherokee Outlet was not thus disposed of yet.
The project of forming an exchisive Indian territory seems first to have been thought of soon after the transfer of the tribes to the country set apart for them west of the Mississippi river, or about that time. Mr. Barbour, secretary of war, recommended
. See elsewhere in this chapter for an account of the settlement of this content tion.
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as early as 1826 the information of a territorial government over the Indian country in the west, and the committee of Indian affairs reported a bill to that effect, but the project advanced no farther at that time. In 1820, Mr. Eaton, secretary of war, said, "I beg leave to suggest for your consideration if an Indian Territory, without the range of western States or Territories, might not be advantageously created." In 1831 the committee of Indian affairs reported a bill for the formation of such a territory, and congress accordingly created and defined Western territory (see elsewhere). The committee even went so far as to ask that should such a territory be formed, it would be well to admit it as a state "when their advancement in civilization would warrant." In 1836 another bill, giving boundaries coincident with the present territory and Oklahoma and Kansas was introduced in congress. During the twenty-seventh congress, Mr. Spencer, secretary of war, said "The plan of something like a territorial government for the Indians has been suggested. The object is worthy of the most deliberate consideration of all who take an interest in the fate of this helpless race." In 18.15-6 the American Mission asso- ciation recommended the formation of such an independent Indian territory, and in response the congressional committee reported a bill defining the boundaries of the Indian territory about as above stated, but this project failed. During all this time the principal argument against the erection of an independ- ent territory, was because the United States was bound not to do so by the stipulations contained in the various treaties with the Indians; which statement was founded on absolute fact. Several of the Indian nations, particularly the Chlaws, bel made great advancement in the arts of civilization; but in a'l cases they protected against the erection of an independent Indian territory. The bill reported in 1845-6 defined the following boundaries : "Bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri as far north as the south bank of the Missouri river ; on the north- cast by the south bank of the said Missouri river to the mouth of the river Plate; on the north by the south bank of the said river Platte to where its north branch crosses the forty-second degree of north latitude nearest to the twenty-eighth degree of longitude west from Washington; and by a line upon said latitude to the Mexican possessions ; and bounded west and south by the said Mexican possessions, shall constitute a territory to be called the Indian Territory."
The same boundaries were defined in a bill introduced in 1818. After this the subject seems to have slept until 1871, when a bill was again introduced in the senate, for the formation of Indian
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Territory. The boundaries were made to embrace about all of the present territories of the Indians and Oklahoma. When the subject came up again in 1875 the Cherokee Indians entered a most vigorous protest, as did also the Osages and other tribes interested. At this time a bill was pending in the house for the erection of a territory out of the whole of the then Indian country, to be called Oklahoma. It was argued in congress that because many of the Indians had fought against the government during the rebellion, the tribes in Indian Territory had forfeited their rights to remain in their own tribal state, as had been guaranteed in previous treaties, and that, therefore, the territory should be placed within a government under the jurisdiction of the United States. The report of the congressional committee reads "All were declared to have forfeited the protection of the Government their right to their soil and of self government. One of the con- - ditions offered them and insisted upon was a provision authoriz- ing the establishment of a territorial form of government by Congress over them. This proposition was strenuously resisted by the delegations of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chicka- saws and Seminoles then in Washington City. So carnest were the commissioners on the part of the United States to force this provision upon them that the then commissioner of Indian Affairs did not hesitate to arrogate to himself the unprecedented authority to depose John Ross, who was and had been for nearly forty years chief of the Cherokee Nation, and- who had fur- nished more men for the Union army according to popula- tion than any State in the Union." The committee recom- mended, for these and other reasons, that the bill be rejected. In 187; another bill of similar import for the formation of . Oklahoma Territory was considered by congress. The proposed territory was bounded north by Kansas and Colorado, south by Texas, east by Missouri and Arkansas, and west by Texas and New Mexico Territory, In 1879 a similar bill was again con- sidered. In 1886 the same bill was made to embrace all of the present Oklahoma, Indian Territory and the public land strip, but the Indians were specially excepted from the operations of the act. At all times the Indians protested vigorously against being included in the territorial government proposed. In 18SS the plan was changed. It was proposed that the Territory of Oklahoma shouldl embrace all of the country west of the five abovementioned civilized tribes, to include the public land strip, but not to indude Giver county. On the public land strip were
. Reports of Committees, Second session, Forty third Congress.
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many settlers, who had without anthority taken farms there and had named the country the "Territory of Cimarron."
As early as 1896 the project of admitting Oklahoma to state- hood was considered by congress. The boundaries have since been variously defined. A large following demanded the cast- ward extension of the proposed state so as to embrace all of Indian Territory. This was strenuously resisted by the Indians · themselves and generally by the congress and the sentiment of the people, who desired that the United States should keep its time- honored faith with the redmen. The question is now pending in congress.
In the same act which created the Territory of Oklahoma (May 2, 1890) Indian Territory was formed with the following boundaries: "That all that part of the United States which is bounded on the north by the State of Kansas, on the east by the States of Arkansas and Missouri, on the south by the State of Texas, and on the west and north by the Territory of Oklahoma (as defined in the first section of this act), shall, for the purposes of this act, be known as Indian Territory." The tract of country occupied by the Indians, and known as Indian Territory, had no independent government, temporary or otherwise, prior to this enactment. It was spoken of as Indian Territory with a capital T even in the public documents, which would signify that it had been granted a'temporary government, but such was not the fact until the passage of the above act. In referring to it as "Indian territory," nothing more was meant than that it was ter- ritory or a tract of country owned or occupied by the Indians. This statement is also true concerning all of the territory west of the Mississippi and north of Missouri after that and poor to. 1834. Even Western Territory, created in 1834, was a general term signifying western Indian lands. The western country was often called Missouri Territory with a big T, but had no organi- zation as such. It was not even attached to any of the organized territories or states during that period except for certain judicial proceedings. As it had very few settlers and as it was mostly occupied by the Indian tribes, from whom the territory had not yet been purchased, it was left to shift for itself usually under a native governor and under Indian laws. At first the policy of the government was to take no action concerning the territory until the Indian title thereto had been extinguished. Later, the policy prevailed to embrace all the tribes within the bounds of new territories, but to exclude them from the operations of the territorial governments. In the case of Indian Territory, the
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natives themselves were conceded their own government, as above shown.
The Cherokee tribe of Indians, having signified their assent to the sale of the Cherokee Outlet, an agreement to that effect was reached December 19, 1891, by which the sum of two hundred and ninety-five thousand seven hundred and thirty-six dollars was appropriated for immediate use, and the secretary of the interior was authorized to contract to pay eight million three hundred thousand dollars in addition, or so much of the same as was necessary for the following tract of country known as the "Chero- kee Outlet :" "Bounded on the west by the one hundredth degree of west longitude; on the north by the State of Kansas; on the east by the ninety-sixth degree of west longitude, and on the south by the Greek nation, the Territory of Oklahoma and the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Reservation, created or defined by Execu- tive order dated August 10, 1869." It was provided that the proclamation of the president should open this tract to settlement. Though persistently urged by many advocates, recent attempts by congress to form either two states of Oklahoma and Indian Ter- ritories with their present boundaries, or one state of both with the outer boundaries of each have failed.
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