Chapter 1822. Authorizing the payment of the Choctaw and Chickasaw town-site fund, and for other purposes
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CHAP. 1822.— An Act Authorizing the payment of the Choctaw and Chickasaw town-site fund, and for other purposes. April 28, 1904.[[H. R. 12382](/us/bill/33/hr/12382).][[Public, No. 254](/us/pl/33/254).] *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*, That the money now accumulatedIndian Territory.Payment of town-site funds to Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians. and which may be hereafter accumulated in the United States Treasury to the credit of the Choctaw arid Chickasaw nations, derived from the sale of town lots in the said Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, shall be paid to the members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes (freedmen excepted) in the manner following:
That, beginning thePayments.Date of. first day of May, nineteen hundred and four, or as soon as practicable thereafter, the said town-site money so accumulated shall be divided and paid to the Choctaws and Chickasaws (freedmen excepted), each member to receive an equal portion thereof. Sec. 2. That no person claiming to be a member of the Choctaw orEnrollment*Post*. p. 1071. Chickasaw tribes small be paid any portion of this fund until he or she has been enrolled as such member and the enrollment has been approved by the Secretary of the Interior: *Provided,* That there shall*Proviso.*Reserved funds for pending claims. be reserved from payment of the town-site fund an amount equal to the sum of the pro rata shares of a persons claiming to be members of the Choctaw or Chickasaw tribes, entitled to share in this fund, whose claims are pending at the time said fund is divided for payment; and the money reserved shall be paid to such persons, if they be finally enrolled and their enrollment approved, in the same manner as other payments of town-site fund are. made hereunder.
That if theDisposal of unused reserve funds. fund thus reserved, or any part of it, should not become payable by reason of the failure of the persons claiming citizenship to be enrolled or of their enrollment to be, approved as herein provided, said reserved funds shall go back to the general town-site fund to be divided and paid to the members of said tribes of approved enrollment as other town-site funds. Sec. 3. That if any person whose name appears upon the rolls asPayment amounts due deceased persons. herein provided shall have died subsequent to the twenty-fifth day of September, nineteen hundred and two, and before receiving his pro rata share of the accumulated town-site fund, the money to which such person would have been entitled if living shall be paid in bis name to his legal representative.
Sec. 4. That following the payment to be made beginning the firstSubsequent payments. day of May, nineteen hundred and four, as provided in this Act, payments shall be made each year thereafter in like manner to the mem-572bers of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes of approved enrollment of the fund accumulated from the sale of town lots in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations, as aforesaid. Sec. 5. Mode of payment.That the payment of the town-site fund shall be under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, as provided in section nine-teen of an Act approved June twenty-eighth, eighteen hundred and Vol. 30, p. 502.ninety-eight, being “An Act for the protection of the people of the Indian Territory, and for other purposes.
” Sec. 6. Deposit of accumulated town-site funds.That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, authorized, upon the request of the Secretary of the Interior, to deposit in the United States subtreasury at Saint Louis, Missouri, to the credit of the proper officer or person, to be designated by the Secretary of the Interior and charged with the duty of paying out the town-site fund as herein provided, the accumulated town-site funds belonging to the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations at that time on deposit in the United States Treasury, or a sufficient amount thereof to carry out the purposes of this Act.
Sec. 7. Repeal.That all Acts or parts of Acts in conflict herewith are hereby repealed, and this Act shall be in force from and after its passage. Approved, April 28, 1904.