Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 11, Final Part 4 "Too Remarkable To Be True"

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 11, #BlackHistory365

Hearings before the Committee on Indian Affairs House of Representatives (61-2)

H.R. 192789, H.R. 19552 & H.R. 22830 pp 59

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Argument & Brief Part 4 (Final)

“Too Remarkable To Be True”

Argument by Harry J. Cantwell, Esq.

I desire, right there, to call the attention of the committee to something that appears to me to be palpable, and yet it is almost too remarkable to be true, and that is that the Dawes Commission, as shown by the statements of the commission to the Secretary of the Interior, took this roll of 1896, which was intended to be a roll of full citizenship, and when they came to makeup the roll of 1898-and in the act of 1898 these special rights of ex-slaves were confirmed— they added those who had been born since the roll of 1896 and returned that citizenship roll as the roll of limited rights; and I say an investigation of that matter will show that to be conclusive, and it accounts largely for the exclusion of a great number of these people independent of the charges of fraud that have been made and the evidence which shows that they were misdirected by being sent from the citizenship tent to the freedmen's tent by officials of the commission.

 Those people did not know. A great deal of testimony was brought out in the Senate as to how they were sent from the citizenship tent over to the freedmen's tent.  

By the act of 1896 their enrollment upon the so-called freedman roll would have conferred upon them full rights. 

What distinction, what difference, did it make to them whether they were called Indians or freedmen? The oral argument that was made was that that was done because these people did not apply for enrollment upon the citizenship roll, and therefore they shall be denied their rights. They did not know the difference as to the right involved between the citizenship roll and the rights under the freedmen roll. There was no difference in the act of 1896 between their rights, whether they were enrolled as freedmen or enrolled as Indians. 

1896 Application for Citizenship Cathrine Perry #505