TESTIMONY OF MR.
TAMS BIXBY,
COMMISSIONER TO THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES.
Direct examination by Mr. BALLINGER:
Mr. BALLINGER. Mr. Bixby, were you with the Commission— The CHAIRMAN. You had better first identify Mr. Bixby.
Mr. BALLINGER. What is your name, official position, and residence?
Commissioner BIXBY. My name is Tams Bixby. I am Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes. I live in Muscogee.
Mr. BALLINGER. Were you in the field when applicants were examined and identified under the act of 1898?
Commissioner BIXBY. I was in the Chickasaw Nation in the fall of 1898.
Mr. BALLINGER. Were you in charge of the examination and identification of either the citizens by blood, freedmen, or intermarried?
Commissioner BIXBY. I presided in the tent at which the applicants who claimed enrollment by reason of Chickasaw blood or Choctaw blood presented themselves.
Mr. BALLINGER. Did
you and your associates decide at Stonewall,
The CHAIRMAN. I think that has been admitted, has it not—that that was the rule that was followed?
Mr. ROGERS. Not so broadly.
Commissioner BIXBY. No, sir; we made no decision at that time.
Mr. BALLINGER. That was the rule, though, that was followed, was it?
Commissioner BIXBY. In what way?
Mr. BALLINGER. That all persons of mixed Indian and negro blood appearing before your Commission were listed for enrollment as freedman.
Commissioner BIXBY. All persons were enlisted for enrollment in accordance with their application either on what we called a regular card or a doubtful card.
Mr. BALLINGER. What application?
Commissioner BIXBY. The application that they made.
Mr. BALLINGER. Were they directed or required to make application?
Commissioner BIXBY. I do not remember whether they were directed or required, but they did come before us at various points in the Chickasaw Nation for the purpose of being enrolled.
Mr. BALLINGER. The law did not require them to make application, did it?
Commissioner BIXBY. I do not think it did. Not in that form, as you put it now.
Mr. BALLINGER. Did you deny any person the right to make application for enrollment as a citizen by blood?
Commissioner BIXBY. No, sir.
Mr. BALLINGER. If a person of mixed Indian and negro blood appeared at the citizenship tent, was he permitted to make application for enrollment as citizen?
Commissioner BIXBY. As I recollect it he was. Of course I would not be entirely certain as to everything that was done by everybody in all the tents and before all our officers.
Mr. BALLINGER. You know Charles
Carter, of
Commissioner BIXBY. I think I do.
Mr. BALLINGER. Do you remember
of his appearing at your tent and before you when the Commission was sitting at
Commissioner BIXBY. No, sir; I have no distinct recollection of it.
Mr. BALLINGER. You do not recollect having denied an applicant who returned with Charles Carter and after a prolonged argument you permitted her to make an application—an old Chickasaw woman?
Commissioner BIXBY. No, sir; I do not recollect.
Mr. BALLINGER. Do you remember
having denied James E. Humphreys to make application for a client for
citizenship at
Commissioner BIXBY. I would have a remarkable memory if 1 could remember that. Several thousand people applied to us at those hearings that we had in the Chickasaw Nation. I can not remember everybody that applied or what was done with them. I can make a general statement that everybody who applied was permitted to make application in accordance with their own notion about it.
Mr. BALLINGER. As matter of fact were there not dozens and hundreds of applicants who appeared before you and endeavored to make application as citizens, whose application was denied?
Commissioner BIXBY. What do you mean—denied on the spot?
Mr. BALLINGER. Whose application for enrollment as citizens by blood was refused by you?
Commissioner BIXBY. On the spot do you mean?
Mr. BALLINGER. Yes.
Commissioner BIXBY. No, sir; emphatically no.
Mr. BALLINGER. You did not compel persons of mixed Indian and negro blood to proceed from your tent to the tent where freedmen or negroes were being enrolled?
Commissioner BIXBY. Certainly not.
Mr. BALLINGER. Where the father was a citizen by blood of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, his wife of negro blood, did you enroll his children upon the roll with the father or with the mother?
Commissioner BIXBY. We did not make any final enrollments at all in the field.
Mr. BALLINGER. How did you list them for enrollment?
Commissioner BIXBY. Why
if they appeared to be regular and their names were on the rolls of Indians, as
furnished us by the tribes, we listed them in accordance with their application,
but that was not final. The final decisions were made afterwards in the office
at
Mr. BALLINGER. Was everything that was said by the applicant at the time he or she appeared before you for enrollment entered upon the examination record such as that [exhibiting paper to the witness].
Commissioner BIXBY. No, sir; not at all.
Mr. BALLINGER. Such portions of their statements as you deemed proper to place upon it.
Commissioner BIXBY. We did not take any testimony in our tent at all.
Mr. BALLINGER. In the tent in which citizens of mixed Indian and negro blood appeared, did they enter everything said by the applicant.
Commissioner BIXBY. I do not know what you mean by that. In the tent where the freedmen applied, they did take some testimony. They did have some stenographers. I did not have anything to do with that. In the tent where I enrolled the Indians by blood, we simply made cards. We did not take any testimony at all. That is the proceeding we followed all through the Creek Nation. We did not take any testimony.
Mr. BALLINGER. Then if a person of mixed Indian and negro blood appeared at your tent, how do you know whether or not he appeared there?
Commissioner BIXBY. We did make a record. We made the card which is all the record we had in those cases.
Mr. BALLINGER. The examination record in the great majority of the cases of Choctaw and Chickasaw freedmen do not show any assertion of right to enrollment as a citizen by blood, do they?
Commissioner BIXBY. I did not take those. I could not tell you unless I examined them later.
Mr. BALLINGER. Were those examination records the only records made by the Commission at that time?
Commissioner BIXBY. No, sir; they made a card also in the Freedmen’s tent.
Mr. BALLINGER. In the adjudication of cases before your Commission do you consider that card as a portion of the evidence?
Commissioner BIXBY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALLINGER. You do?
Commissioner BIXBY. Yes.
Mr. BALLINGER. Where
the examination record is silent upon the Indian blood and the field card shows
the Indian blood of the father, do you consider that in connection with this
record under the act of
Commissioner BIXBY. We would now; yes, sir.
Mr. BALLINGER. Would you in July of this year?
Commissioner BIXBY. Well, I should think so.
Mr. BALLINGER. Did you, in the Theoda Sparks case?
Commissioner BIXBY. I can not remember that case. You must remember that we have about 25,000 cases.
Mr. BALLINGER. You knew in November of last year that the examination records in practically all cases of mixed Indian and negro blood did not show any assertion of right to enrollment as citizens, did you not?
Commissioner BIXBY. I do not remember whether I knew that all the records showed that or not. I have no recollection of each particular case.
Mr. BALLINGER. The great majority of the records?
Commissioner BIXBY. I expect they show, if you say so; you probably have examined them all.
Mr. BALLINGER. Knowing that to be true why did you draft a provision of law or a tentative provision of law that made those records conclusive as to the rights of these parties?
Commissioner BIXBY. I do not know that I am under obligations to answer that. Still I will waive that. I submitted a draft of a law, under the direction of the Secretary, in conjunction with the chief law clerk and other employees of the Commission, embodying such provisions of law as I thought were fair and reasonable to protect the interests of the tribes and to facilitate business. That was not a law, by the way, but as submitted to Congress by the Secretary. Of course, what we drafted originally was submitted to the Secretary.
Record
submitted and transcribed by Terry Ligon