The Cherokee Nation covenant and agree that slavery shall never hereafter exist in the nation. All freedmen, as well as all free colored persons resident in the nation at the outbreak of the rebellion and now resident therein or who shall return within six months and their descendants, shall have all the rights of native Cherokees. Owners of emancipated slaves shall never receive any compensation therefor.
10. All Cherokees shall have the right to sell their farm produce, live stock, merchandise, or manufactures, and to ship and drive the same to market without restraint, subject to any tax now or hereafter levied by the United States on the quantity sold outside of the Indian Territory.
11. The Cherokee Nation grant a right of way 200 feet in width through their country to any company authorized by Congress to construct a railroad from north to south and from east to west through the Cherokee Nation. The officers, employés, and laborers of such company shall be protected in the discharge of their duties while building or operating said road through the nation and at all times shall be subject to the Indian intercourse laws.
12. The Cherokees agree to the organization of a general council, to be composed of delegates elected to represent all the tribes in the Indian Territory, and to be organized as follows:
I. A census shall be taken of each tribe in the Indian Territory.
II. The first general council shall consist of one member for each tribe, and an additional member for each one thousand population or fraction thereof over five hundred. Any tribe failing to elect such members of council shall be represented by its chief or chiefs and headmen in the above proportion. The council shall meet at such time and place as the Superintendent of Indian Affairs shall approve. No session shall exceed thirty days in any one year. The sessions shall be annual; special sessions may be called by the Secretary of the Interior in his discretion.
III. The council shall have power to legislate upon matters pertaining to intercourse and relations of the tribes and freedmen resident in Indian Territory; the arrest and extradition of criminals and offenders escaping from one tribe or community to another; the administration of justice between members of different tribes and persons other than Indians and members of said tribes or nations; and the common defense and safety. All laws enacted by the council shall take effect as therein provided, unless suspended by the President of the United States. No law shall be enacted inconsistent with the Constitution or laws of the United States or with existing treaty stipulations. The council shall not legislate upon matters other than above indicated, unless jurisdiction shall be enlarged by consent of the national council of each nation or tribe, with the assent of the President of the United States.
IV. Said council shall be presided over by such person as may be designated by the Secretary of the Interior.
V. The council shall elect a secretary, who shall receive from the United States an annual salary of $500. He shall transmit a certified copy of the council proceedings to the Secretary of the Interior and to each tribe or nation in the council.
VI. Members of the council shall be paid by the United States $4 a day during actual attendance on its meetings and $4 for every 20 miles of necessary travel in going to and returning therefrom.
13. The United States may establish a court or courts in the Indian Territory, with such organization and jurisdiction as may be established by law, provided that the judicial tribunals of the Cherokee Nation shall retain exclusive jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases arising within their country in which members of the nation shall be the only parties, or where the cause of action shall arise in the Cherokee Nation, except as otherwise provided in this treaty.
14. Every society or denomination erecting or desiring to erect buildings for missionary or educational purposes shall be entitled to select and occupy for those purposes 160 acres of vacant land in one body.
15. The United States may settle any civilized Indians, friendly with the Cherokees, within the latter's country on unoccupied lands east of 96°, on terms agreed upon between such Indians and the Cherokees, subject to the approval of the President of the United States. If any tribe so settling shall abandon its tribal organization and pay into the Cherokee national fund a sum bearing the same proportion to such fund as said tribe shall in numbers bear to the population of the Cherokee Nation such tribe shall be incorporated into and ever after remain a part of that nation on equal terms with native citizens thereof.
If any tribe so settling shall decide to preserve its tribal organization, laws, customs, and usages not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the Cherokee Nation, it shall have set apart in compact form for use and occupancy a tract equal to 160 acres for each member of the tribe. Such tribe shall pay for this land a price agreed upon with the Cherokees, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, and in case of disagreement the price to be fixed by the President.
Such tribe shall also pay into the national fund a sum to be agreed upon by the respective parties, not greater in proportion to the whole existing national fund and the probable proceeds of the lands herein ceded or authorized to be ceded or sold than their numbers bear to the whole number of Cherokees, and thereafter they shall enjoy all the rights of native Cherokees.
No Indians without tribal organization, or who having one shall have determined to abandon the same, shall be permitted to settle in the Cherokee country east of 96° without the permission of the proper Cherokee authorities. And no Indians determining to preserve their tribal organization shall so settle without such consent, unless the President, after a full hearing of the Cherokee objections thereto, shall deem them insufficient and authorize such settlement.
16. The United States may settle friendly Indians on any Cherokee lands west of 96°; such lands to be selected in compact form and to equal in quantity 160 acres for each member of the tribe so settled. Such tribe shall pay therefor a price to be agreed upon with the Cherokees, or, in the event of failure to agree, the price to be fixed by the President. The tract purchased shall be conveyed in fee simple to the tribe so purchasing, to be held in common or allotted in severalty as the United States may decide.
The right of possession and jurisdiction over the Cherokee country west of 96° to abide with the Cherokees until thus sold and occupied.
17. The Cherokee Nation cedes to the United States, in trust to be surveyed, appraised, and sold for the benefit of that nation, the tract of 800,000 acres sold to them by the United States by article 2, treaty of 1835, and the strip of land ceded to the nation by article 4, treaty of 1835, lying within the State of Kansas, and consents that said lands may be included in the limits and jurisdiction of said State. The appraisement shall not average less than $1.25 per acre, exclusive of improvements.
The Secretary of the Interior shall, after due advertisement for sealed bids, sell such lands to the highest bidders for cash in tracts of not exceeding 160 acres each at not less than the appraised value. Settlers having improvements to the value of $50 or more on any of the lands not mineral and occupied for agricultural purposes at the date of the signing of this treaty, shall, after due proof under rules to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, be allowed to purchase at the appraised value the smallest quantity of land to include their improvements, not exceeding 160 acres each.
The expenses of survey and appraisement shall be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of the lands, and nothing herein shall prevent the Secretary of the Interior from selling to any responsible party for cash all of the unoccupied portion of these lands in a body, for not less than $800,000.
18. Any lands owned by the Cherokees in Arkansas or in States east of the Mississippi River may be sold by their national council, upon the approval of the Secretary of the Interior.
19. All Cherokees residing on the ceded lands desiring to remove to the Cherokee country proper shall be paid by the purchasers the appraised value of their improvements. Such Cherokees desiring to remain on the lands so occupied by them shall be entitled to a patent in fee simple for 320 acres each, to include their improvements, and shall thereupon cease to be members of the nation.
20. Whenever the Cherokee national council shall so request, the Secretary of the Interior shall cause the country reserved for the Cherokees to be surveyed