This is the largest body of Indians in the United States. They reside in the State of Oklahoma and number, according to the Commissioner’s report,[20] 101,216. The Five Civilized Tribes are composed of southern Indians. A consideration of their tribal customs and ethnology will be presented in the next volume of my history. While the Indians follow some of their ancient customs, the bulk of them have so far departed from the faith of their fathers, that it is advisable to consider their present life and needs, rather than their past. The report on these Indians for the year ending June 30th, 1913, and signed by J. George Wright, Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, Dana H. Kelsey, Superintendent of Union Agency, and John B. Brown, Supervisor of Education, lies before me. According to this, they are divided among the tribes as follows:— Cherokees 41,706 Choctaws 24,973 Creeks 18,700 Chickasaws 10,989 Seminoles 3,119 Mississippi Choctaws 1,639 These Indians are known by ethnologists to belong to the great Muskhogean stock, and lived in the South, east of the Mississippi. They constitute a third of our Indian population. As to why they were removed—that is another story. Suffice it to say that the year 1850 found them in that region known as Indian Territory. Here they located upon large tracts of tribal land amounting to 19,475,614 acres. Treaties setting forth that they were to remain in undisturbed possession of their new homes were duly signed by the United States Government. Although the treaty of 1866 stipulated that they were entitled to send a delegate to our Congress, when Congress authorized the admission of a representative from Indian Territory, and in spite of the fact that some of the tribes made an effort to bring about this result, nothing effectual was ever accomplished. May 2, 1890, the laws of Arkansas were extended to cover Indian Territory, and March 3, 1901, every Indian of the Territory was declared to be a citizen of the United States. March 3, 1893, President Cleveland appointed the famous Dawes Commission. This undertook to allot to all the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes lands in severalty. There were 200,000 claimants and about 90,000 were allotted. Although I am tempted to present a mass of statistics and facts proving that these most advanced Indians were robbed and despoiled, without let or hindrance, that the treaties made with them were cooly set aside, statehood promises broken, and finally even the very farms and tracts, on which they were to live as citizens and enjoy the blessings of liberty and equality, were taken away, I must confine myself to a consideration of the subject in its broad aspect.