The movement for the abolition of the Indian governments and the allotment and opening of the Indian country had now gained such force that by act of Congress approved March 3, 1893, the President was authorized to appoint a commission of three--known later as the Dawes Commission, from its distinguished chairman, Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts--to negotiate with the five civilized tribes of Indian territory, viz, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole, for "the extinguishment of tribal titles to any lands within that territory, now held by any and all of such nations and tribes, either by cession of the same or some part thereof to the United States, or by the allotment and division of the same in severalty among the Indians of such nations or tribes respectively as may be entitled to the same, or by such other method as may be agreed upon ... to enable the ultimate creation of a state or states of the Union, which shall embrace the land within the said Indian territory." [393] The commission appointed arrived in the Indian territory in January, 1894, and at once began negotiations. [394] At this time the noncitizen element in Indian Territory was officially reported to number at least 200,000 souls, while those having rights as citizens of the five civilized tribes, including full-blood and mixed-blood Indians, adopted whites, and negroes, numbered but 70,500. [395] Not all of the noncitizens were intruders, many being there by permission of the Indian governments or on official or other legitimate business, but the great body of them were illegal squatters or unrecognized claimants to Indian rights, against whose presence the Indians themselves had never ceased to protest. A test case brought this year in the Cherokee Nation was decided by the Interior Department against the claimants and in favor of the Cherokee. Commenting upon threats made in consequence by the rejected claimants, the agent for the five tribes remarks: "It is not probable that Congress will establish a court to nullify and vacate a formal decision of the Interior Department." [396] A year later he says of these intruders that "so long as they have a foothold--a residence, legal or not--in the Indian country they will be disturbers of peace and promoters of discord, and while they cry aloud, and spare not, for allotment and statehood, they are but stumbling blocks and obstacles to that mutual good will and fraternal feeling which must be cultivated and secured before allotment is practicable and statehood desirable." [397] The removal of the intruders was still delayed, and in 1896 the decision of citizenship claims was taken from the Indian government and relegated to the Dawes Commission. [398]