Publisher's Synopsis
Between May 1905 and April 1907, the U.S. Supreme Court authorized the Secretary of the Interior to identify the descendants of Eastern Cherokees entitled to participate in the distribution of more than $1 million in outstanding claims against the U.S. government based upon the Treaties of 1835-36 and 1845. On May 28, 1909, Commissioner Guion Miller, representing the Interior Department, submitted to Congress his findings with respect to 45,857 separate applications for compensation (totaling about 90,000 individual Native American claimants). Miller qualified about 30,000 persons inhabiting approximately thirty-nine states and three countries to share in the fund. Ninety percent of the eligible were living west of the Mississippi River.
