Article xl (Creek Treaty). In order to enable the Creek and Seminole Nations to claim their rights and secure their interests without the intervention of counsel or agents, and as they were originally one and the same people and are now entitled to reside in the country of each other, they shall be jointly entitled to a delegate to the House of Representatives of the Confederate States of America, who shall serve for the term of two years, and be a member of one of the said nations, over twenty-one years of age, and labouring under no legal disability by the law of either nation; and each delegate shall be entitled to the same rights and privileges as may be enjoyed by delegates from any territories of the Confederate States to the said House of Representatives. Each shall receive such pay and mileage as shall be fixed by the Congress of the Confederate States. The first election for delegate shall be held at such time and places, and be conducted in such manner as shall be prescribed by the agent of the Confederate States, to whom returns of such election shall be made, and he shall declare the person having the greatest number of votes to be duly elected, and give him a certificate of election accordingly, which shall entitle him to his seat. For all subsequent elections, the times, places, and manner of holding them and ascertaining and certifying the result shall be prescribed by law of the Confederate States [p. 297].
Compare with Article XXVII of Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty [p. 318], the chief point of difference between the two being that, in the latter treaty the delegate to which the two tribes, parties to the treaty, were entitled jointly, was to be elected from them alternately. The Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty also stipulated that the delegate was to be a member by birth or blood on either the father’s or the mother’s side. The corresponding provision in the Cherokee Treaty, Article XLIV [pp. 403-404], said that the delegate should be a native born citizen. The Seminole arrangement, Article XXXVII [p. 339], was, as might be expected, exactly the same as the Creek.
[265] The Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty was the only one that developed this idea. We might presume that the Creeks were even opposed to it. This is how it appears in Articles XXVIII, XXIX, and XXX, of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Treaty [pp. 318-319]:
Article xxviii. In consideration of the uniform loyalty and good faith, and the tried friendship for the people of the Confederate States, of the Choctaw and Chickasaw people, and of their fitness and capacity for self-government, proven by the establishment and successful maintenance, by each, of a regularly organized republican government, with all the forms and safe-guards to which the people of the Confederate States are accustomed, it is hereby agreed by the Confederate States, that whenever and so soon as the people of each nation shall, by ordinance of a convention of delegates, duly elected by majorities of the legal voters, at an election regularly held after due and ample notice, in pursuance of an act of the Legislature of each, respectively, declare its desire to become a State of the Confederacy, the whole Choctaw and Chickasaw country, as above defined, shall be received and admitted into the Confederacy as one of the Confederate States, on equal terms, in all respects, with the original States, without regard to population; and all the members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations shall thereby become citizens of the Confederate States, not including, however, among such members, the individuals of the bands settled in the leased district aforesaid.
Provided, That, as a condition precedent to such admission, the said nations shall provide for the survey of their lands, the holding in severalty of parts thereof by their people, the dedication of at least one section in every thirty-six to purposes of education, and the sale of such portions as are not reserved for these, or other special purposes, to citizens of the Confederate States alone, on such terms as the said nation shall see fit to fix, not intended or calculated to prevent the sale thereof.
Article xxix. The proceeds of such sales shall belong entirely to members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, and be distributed among them or invested for them in proportion to the whole population of each, in such manner as the Legislatures of said nations shall provide; nor shall any other persons ever have any interest in the annuities or funds of either the Choctaw or Chickasaw people, nor any power to legislate in regard thereto.
Article xxx. Whenever the desire of the Creek and Seminole people and the Cherokees to become a part of the said State shall be expressed, in the same manner and with the same formalities, as is above provided for in the case of the Choctaw and Chickasaw people, the country of the Creeks and Seminoles, and that of the Cherokees, respectively, or either by itself, may be annexed to and become an integral part of said State, upon the same conditions and terms, and with the same rights to the people of each, in regard to citizenship and the proceeds of their lands.
[266] Abel, “Proposals for an Indian State in the Union, 1778-1878,” in the American Historical Association, Report, 1907, pp. 89-102.
[267] Official Records, first ser., vol. iii, 577.
[268] Articles V and VI.