I shall hereafter communicate to the Congress all information received by me in relation to the Samoan status.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

[Footnote 29:  See pp. 804-805.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, February 1, 1889.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

As supplementary to my previous messages on the subject, I have now the honor to transmit a report from the Secretary of State relating to affairs in Samoa.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 5, 1889.

To the Congress: 

I transmit herewith, for approval and ratification, a provisional agreement lately entered into between the Government of the United States and the Creek Nation of Indians, through their duly authorized representatives, and which has been approved by the National Council of said nation, by which agreement the title and interest of the said Creek Nation of Indians in and to all lands in the Indian Territory or elsewhere, except such as are held and occupied as the homes of said nation, are ceded to the United States.

The eighth section of the Indian appropriation bill approved March 3, 1885, authorized the President “to open negotiations with the Creeks, Seminoles, and Cherokees for the purpose of opening to settlement under the homestead laws the unassigned lands in the Indian Territory ceded by them respectively to the United States by the several treaties of August 11, 1866, March 21, 1866, and July 19, 1866.”  This section also contains an appropriation in furtherance of its purpose, and requires that the action of the President thereunder should be reported to Congress.

The “unassigned” lands thus referred to should be construed to be those which have not been transferred by the United States in pursuance of the treaties mentioned in the section quoted.

The treaty with the Creeks is dated June 14, 1866.  It was confirmed by a Senate resolution passed July 19, 1866, and was proclaimed August 11, 1866 (14 U.S.  Statutes at Large, p. 785).

The third article of the treaty makes a cession of lands in the following words: 

In compliance with the desire of the United States to locate other Indians and freedmen thereon, the Creeks hereby cede and convey to the United States, to be sold to and used as homes for such other civilized Indians as the United States may choose to settle thereon, the west half of their entire domain, to be divided by a line running north and south; the eastern half of said Creek lands, being retained by them, shall, except as herein otherwise stipulated, be forever set apart as a home for said Creek Nation; and in consideration of said cession of the west half of their lands, estimated to contain 3,250,560 acres, the United States agree to pay the sum of 30 cents per acre, amounting to $975,168.

The provision that the lands conveyed were “to