Adkins v. Arnold, 235 U.S. 417 (1914)

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Adkins v. Arnold

No. 52

Submitted November 5, 1914
Decided December 14, 1914
235 U.S. 417

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Syllabus

Under § 16 of the Creek Indian Allotment Act of June 30, 1902, c. 1323, 32 Stat. 500, only allotments to living members of the tribe in their own right were subjected to restrictions upon alienation. Allotments on behalf of deceased members were left unrestricted. Skelton v. Dill, ante, p. 206.

In putting the laws of Arkansas in force in the Indian Territory by the Acts of May 2, 1890, and February 19, 1903, Congress intended that those laws should have the same force and meaning that they had in Arkansas, and that they should be construed as they had theretofore been interpreted by the supreme court of that state. Robinson v. Belt, 187 U.S. 41.

Although the laws of Arkansas were put in force in the Indian Territory by different acts of Congress, they were not adopted as unrelated, but as parts of a single system of laws whose relative operation, as determined by the Supreme Court of Arkansas, had become an integral part of them.

The Supreme Court of Arkansas having held prior to the acts of Congress putting either section in force in the Indian Territory that § 4621, Mansfield’s Digest was a later enactment than § 648 and superseded it so far as they were in conflict, Congress must have intended that those sections should be so regarded in the Indian Territory, although § 648 was part of a chapter put in force by the later act of Congress.

32 Okl. 167 affirmed.

The facts, which involve the construction of statutes relating to Creek Indian allotments and the laws of descent applicable thereto, are stated in the opinion.