Book Description

Excerpt from Campbell's Abstract of Creek Indian Census Cards and Index The preparation of this record has been a tedious work. It is believed by the Compiler that its publication will have a decided effect for good on land titles in Eastern Oklahoma. No one thing has been more responsible for the bad titles of Eastern Oklahoma than the lack of knowledge of the facts on the part of the public. Congress after the making of certain treaties under which citizens of the Creek Nation were enrolled and received their allotments, enacted many laws materially effecting these treaty provisions and as a result the title to land. These laws, of course, were made public, but the facts under which any one of these laws were applicable, in any specific instance, were not given the same publicity. Many facts were purposely suppressed by the Government, and this was done in an effort to protect these allottees from the land shark. Their day, however, is now passed, and Congress, by subsequent laws, has so protected the allottee that the widest publicity of the facts is for the best interest of the allottee, as well as the public generally. The publication of the Tribal Rolls, in 1907, gave the roll number, name of the allottee, age, sex and blood, and operated to a large extent to inform the public, but this information was not sufficient, in fact, it aided only those who, by reason of their familiarity with the workings and records of the Indian Offices, knew how to secure additional information. I emphasize ihe words those who knew how for this reason: only those who had a working familarity with the procedure and the records of the Dawes Commission, later the office of the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, and now the office of the Superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes, knew what to ask for to advise themselves. An investor from Iowa, Illinois or New York knows nothing of these records. He is shown the roll book, published by the Interior Department, and he takes the information there given as a verity. It did not occur to him to make further investigation, in the office of the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes. If he did think of making further investigation he was given a copy of the census card of the particular allottee in which he was interested. He was told that this was the family card, he was not told that a member of that same family might be found on 1, 2, 5, 10 or 15 other cards, as the case might be. In fact, no one knew of this in each particular instance. Those familiar with the records knew that members of the same fam ly might appear on different cards, but what cards no one knew. The records here presented are the first effort at cross-indexing, the purpose being to locate the different members of any particular family. The indexing has been made with great care, and we have not been content with indexing under the name as spelled on the card, but have, in many instances, indexed under two, three and even four different spellings. An examination of the card itself will show the necessity for this. The same names have on these records been spelled many different ways, in fact, in many cases the same name appearing twice on the same card will be spelled differently, and we have sought by this index to cover all such discrepancies, and in cases where. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com