The Secretary of the Interior reports that leading Indians have
absorbed great tracts of land to the exclusion of the common people, and
government by an Indian aristocracy has been practically established, to
the detriment of the people. It has been found impossible for the United
States to keep its citizens out of the Territory, and the executory
conditions contained in the treaties with these Nations have for the
most part become impossible of execution. Nor has it been possible for
the Tribal Governments to secure to each individual Indian his full
enjoyment in common with other Indians of the common property of the
Nations. Friends of the Indians have long believed that the best
interests of the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes would be found in
American citizenship, with all the rights and privileges which belong to
that condition.

By section 16, of the act of March 3, 1893, the President was authorized
to appoint three commissioners to enter into negotiations with the
Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (or Creek), and Seminole Nations,
commonly known as the Five Civilized Tribes in the Indian Territory.
Briefly, the purposes of the negotiations were to be: The extinguishment
of Tribal titles to any lands within that Territory now held by any and
all such Nations or Tribes, either by cession of the same or some part
thereof to the United States, or by 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 between the several Nations and Tribes aforesaid, or each of them,
with the United States, with a view to such an adjustment upon the basis
of justice and equity as may, with the consent of the said Nations of
Indians so far as may be necessary, be requisite and suitable to enable
the ultimate creation of a State or States of the Union which shall
embrace the lands within said Indian Territory.