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Applications for Enrollment of Choctaw Newborn, Act of 1905. Volume XVIApplications for Enrollment of Choctaw
Newborn, Act of 1905. Volume XVI. Jeff Bowen. Paperback, 2020,
Index, vii + 356 pp. This is the third series of transcriptions by
Mr. Bowen devoted to the enrollment of "Newborn" members of the Five
Civilized Tribes under the Dawes Act. Previous series have covered Cherokee and
Seminole Newborn. The Applications for Enrollment of
Choctaw Newborn, Act of 1905, National Archive film M-1301, Rolls 50-57,
are found under the heading of Applications for Enrollment of the Commission to
the Five Civilized Tribes. These applications contain considerably more
information than stated on the census cards found in series M-1186. Series
M-1301 possesses its own numerical sequence, separate from M-1186. To find each
party's roll number researchers must reference M-1186. The governing 1905 statute (H.R. 17474) defined
Choctaw Newborn as "infant children born prior to September twenty-fifth,
nineteen hundred and two, and who were living on said date, to citizens by
blood of the Choctaw . . ." It also authorized the Department of the
Interior to enroll and make allotments to such children based on applications
received on their behalf no later than May 2, 1905. The Choctaw--as well as the Chickasaw
allotments--were likely some of the most sought after properties in Indian
Territory. There was supposed to be a 25-year restriction on the sale or lease
of any Indian lands so as to ensure that the owners wouldn't be swindled;
however, the presence of huge asphalt and coal deposits in both the Choctaw and
Chickasaw Districts elicited pressure from private interests to purchase the
lands. On April 26, 1906, President Roosevelt signed the Five Tribes Bill
removing some of the restrictions from the sale of all inherited land but
continuing to prohibit full-bloods from selling their land for 25 years. Mr. Bowen's faithful transcriptions of the
Choctaw applications provide the names of the applicants and their relatives,
as well as the identities of doctors, lawyers, midwives, and others. NS-2110 |