“This fight was highly successful to the white contenders and resulted in the enactment of a law on May 27, 1908, executive July 27, 1908, repealing the restrictions on the sale of a large class of land including all homesteads of freedmen and of mixed-bloods of less than half blood, freeing from restrictions all told, over 9,720,000 acres. It provided also that all homesteads, as well as all other lands from which restrictions against sale were removed, should become taxable the same as lands of white people, whether sold by the allottee or not. This late act violated the terms of the agreements made with the Indians under which the homesteads of the Creeks and the allotments, or parts thereof, of the Choctaw and other tribes were exempted from taxation for a given period. [Illustration: © _by Rodman Wanamaker 1913_ _Chief Plenty Coups_] “While this measure was being opposed before the House Committee on Indian Affairs, in illustrating the disastrous policy toward the Indians that Congress was entering upon, Mr. Mott referred to the 8th day of August, 1907, when restrictions automatically expired on all lands in the Creek Nation, except homesteads, of all allottees of less than full blood. He stated that by one o’clock of the morning of the 8th day of August, deeds conveying one-half of the lands of the Creek Nation so affected were executed and delivered to well-organized land buyers, in many cases for inadequate considerations, and that these considerations were frittered away in a few weeks. This statement was not controverted. “The part of this Act which undertook to subject to taxation the homesteads and other lands of the Indians was regarded as destructive of their property rights. The Indians had agreed to the allotment of their lands upon the condition contained in their treaties that certain exemptions from taxation should be observed. The Choctaw and Chickasaw lands were to be exempt while owned by the allottees. It was provided that in the Creek, Cherokee and Seminole tribes, a homestead of forty acres should be reserved from each allotment, which should be non-taxable for twenty-one years. This arrangement was favored by the Government as a wise policy of equalizing to the Indians the handicap under which they were about to enter upon a new method of living. It was seen that the destruction of this safeguard would bring disaster to the Indians as it would introduce a most insidious agency for divesting the Indians of their land under the power to sell for delinquent taxes; and it was realized that withdrawing the exemption was the arbitrary taking of property without due process of law, which the courts should be asked to prevent.