of this State, and be further punished by fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court.

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any persons other than Indians, shall, after the passing of this act, take possession of, or intrude or settle on any of the waste or ungranted lands of this State, lying eastward of the lands ceded by this State to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and westward of the line or lines commonly called the Line of Property, agreed on between the Indians and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight, every person so taking possession of, or intruding or settling on any such waste or ungranted lands, within the limits aforesaid, shall be deemed as holding such lands by a foreign title, against the right and sovereignty of the people of this State; and it shall and may be lawful for the person administering the government of this State for the time being, and it is hereby declared to be his duty to remove, or cause to be removed, from time to time, by such means, and in such manner as he shall judge proper, all persons other than Indians who shall so take possession of or settle or intrude on any of the waste or ungranted lands of this State, within the limits aforesaid, and to cause the building or other improvements of such intruders on such lands, to be destroyed; and for that purpose, in his discretion, to order out any proportion of the militia from any part of this State, and such an occasion to be deemed an emergency, intended in the second section of the act entitled "An act to regulate the militia," passed the fourth day of April, 1786. And the detachments so from time to time to be ordered out, shall receive the same pay and rations, and be subject to the same rules and regulations, as is provided in the said section of the said act.1

Before closing this section, the following remarks by Yates and Moulton2 in regard to the policy of the State of New York in this respect are presented, in order that they may be considered in connection with the facts which have been given:

In New York, prior to the confederacy of the Union, the same principle as that which was confirmed in Virginia was adopted as an article (37) of the constitution of 1777, and reincorporated in that of 1822 (article 7, section 12). It rendered contracts made with the Indians void unless sanc

'Laws of Colonial and State Governments in 63-65. [Appearing in original text.]

History of New York (1824), Vol. I, pp. 308-10.

Regard to Indian Affairs, pp.

[Appearing in original text.]

tioned by the legislature. Before and since the adoption of the constitution of the United States various legislative provisions have been made relative to the different Indian tribes and nations within the State. Judicial decisions have also followed some of which were deemed to run counter to the broad principle as settles in the last case by the courts, and were therefore reversed directly or virtually. But it had been early settled that possession of Indians did not invalidate a patent from the State, and that sales by Indians were void made to the whites without legislative sanction. But in the final decision of the Court of Errors, it was considered, that from the constitutional provisions of the State, from the object and policy of the act relative to the different tribes and nations within this State, declaring such purchases (without legislative sanction) a penal offense; from the construction in pari materia of the whole code of Indian statute law, from the special act of 1778 to that of 1810; from a review of the history of the Six Nations from their first alliance with the Dutch until the surrender of the colony to the English, and from the time when they placed themselves under the protection of the latter to the present period, having for more than a century been under their and our protection; from the resolutions of Congress and our public treaties, all combining to elucidate the principle of pre-eminent claim, and from the whole scope and policy of these constitutional and legislative provisions originating in the cautious and parental policy of government to protect the Indians in the possession of their lands from the frauds and imposition, superior cunning, and sagacity of the whites; they were to be deemed as incapable of aliening as inoper concilii, and therefore, that, although they are regarded not as citizens, but as independent allies, or alien communities, still continuing under the protection of government, and exempt from the civil municipal laws which regulate citizens (though not from the operation of our criminal code for crimes committed within our jurisdictional limits, though among themselves), nevertheless, all contracts for lands, whether from a tribe or nation-from Indians or from an individual Indian, whether such individual be an Indian heir deriving from a military grant from government (which though presumed from lapse of time to have issued lawfully, must be construed as a grant to the Indian and his Indian heirs and assigns), yet such is their total incapacity to convey to whites, that all contracts for lands are not only void, but reciprocally inoperative, except such individual sales as shall first receive, pursuant to the act of the legis

lature, the approval of the Surveyor General of the State, to be endorsed on the deed from such Indian.

Such being the principles of international law, as sanctioned before and since our revolution, such the municipal regulations of our general and State governments since, and such the foundation to the domain of this State; no title derived from the grant of any Indians, unless received immediately from our government, can be recognized in our courts of justice so long as all title is vested in, and must emanate from the United States, or a State, under whichsoever jurisdiction the land may be a part of its sovereignty.

This is undoubtedly a correct statement of the law and theory of the United States as already noticed, and is also applicable to New York subsequent to the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, but the facts as given above, which might be greatly multiplied, do not indicate such a regular, systematic, and just policy prior to this date as that portrayed by Yates and Moulton.

EXHIBIT 248.

Condition of the Cayuga Indians.1

Over the fate of the Cayugas a feeling of regret and sympathy is awakened, as having been even less fortunate than their unfortunate kindred. This nation has become literally scattered abroad. Immediately after the Revolution, the tide of population began to press upon them, and hem them in on every side, to such a degree that they were obliged wholly to surrender their domain. In the brief space of twelve years after the first house of the white man was erected in Cayuga county (1789) the whole nation was uprooted and gone. In 1795, they ceded, by treaty, all their lands to the State, with the exception of one reservation, which they finally abandoned about the year 1800. A portion of them removed to Green Bay, another to Grand river, and still another, and a much larger band, settled at Sandusky, in Ohio, from whence they were removed by government, a few years since, into the Indian Terri""League of the Iroquois", by Lewis H. Morgan, Vol. I, p. 29.

tory, west of the Mississippi. About one hundred and twenty-five still reside among the Senecas, in western New York, and yet retain their name and lineage, and have their separate chiefs. Those west of the Mississippi, and those residing with the Senecas, divide between them the State annuity of $2,300, which was secured to them upon the sale of their former possessions.

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The natural feelings of man, and the sense of public justice are violated and appalled at the narration of their proceedings. It is no small crime against humanity to seize the firesides and property of a whole community, without an equivalent, and against their will; and then to drive them, beggared and outraged, into a wild and inhospitable wilderness. And yet this is the exact scheme of the Ogden Land Company; the one in which they have long been engaged, and the one which they still continue to prosecute. The Georgia treaty with the Cherokees, so justly held up to execration, is a white page, compared with the treaties of 1838 and 1842, which were forced upon the Senecas. This project has already, however, in part, been defeated, by the load of iniquity which hung upon the skirts of these treaties; and it is to be hoped, for the credit of humanity, that the cause of the Indian will yet triumph, and that the residue of the Senecas will be permitted to dwell in peace in the land of their nativity.1

The census of last year fixes the number of Senecas upon their reservations in western New York, at two thousand seven hundred and twelve. A small band, after the Revolution emigrated to Grand river, where they now have a miniature of the ancient League, and another removed to Sandusky, and from thence into the Indian Territory. Those at present within the State are rapidly improving in their social and moral conditions; as also, it is believed, are those residing upon Grand river, in Canada, where there are now about seven hundred Mohawks, besides five hundred near

'The Buffalo Reservation, which made the fourth reserved tract, and was the most valuable, has fallen into the hands of the Ogden Company, but not so much by virtue of the treaties as by skilful management. It contains forty-nine thousand acres of land bordering the corporate limits of the city of Buffalo, and was supposed to be worth over a million of dollars. For the land, and its farming improvements, the Company paid the Senecas about one hundred thousand dollars. [Appearing in original text.]

Kingston, four hundred Onondagas, seven hundred Cayugas, three hundred Tuscaroras, and two hundred Senecas and Oneidas.

From the sales of the lands of the Iroquois, at various times, large sums of money have accrued, which have been invested by the State and national governments for their benefit; and the interest arising from the same is now paid over and distributed among them semi-annually. The Senecas alone have an annual income from these sources, amounting to $18,000.

They can now marry into any tribe but their own. Under the original as well as modern regulations, the husband and wife were of different tribes. The children always followed the tribe of the mother.

As the whole Iroquois system rested upon the tribes as an organic division of the people, it was very natural that the separate rights of each should be jealously guarded. Not the least remarkable among their institutions, was that which confined the transmission of all titles, rights and property in the female line to the exclusion of the male. It is strangely unlike the canons of descent adopted by civilized nations, but it secured several impcrtant objects. If the Deer tribe of the Cayugas, for example, received a sachemship at the original distribution of these offices, the descent of such title being limited to the female line, it could never pass out of the tribe. It thus became instrumental in giving to the tribe individuality. A still more marked result, and perhaps a leading object of this enactment was the perpetual disinheritance of the son. Being of the tribe of his mother formed an impassable barrier against him; and he could neither succeed his father as a sachem, nor inherit from him even his medal, or his tomahawk. The inheritance, for the protection of tribal rights, was thus directed from the lineal descendants of the sachem, to his brothers, or his sisters' children, or, under certain circumstances, to some individual of the tribe at large; each and all of whom were in his tribe, while his children, being in another tribe, as before remarked, were placed out of the line of succession.

By the operation of this principle, also, the certainty of descent in the tribe, of their principal chiefs, was secured by a rule in