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Federal court records: Latimer v. Poteet, Meigs Post

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  • SUPREME COURT Lattimer v. ruMSt, treaty line, the land in controversy lies within the Indian country. And we are now to consider, whether, in this view, the entr) and patent are void. The Indian title being only a right of occupancy, the state of North Carolina had the power to grant the fie in the lands, subject to this rij was entered in 1795, and patented the 20th July 1796. By the fifth section of the act of North Carolina, for opening the land-office for the redemption of specie and other certificates, and discharging the arrears due to the army, passed in 1783, H is provided, " that the Cherokee Indians shall enjoy all the lands lying within certain bounds for ever." And the sixth section provides, " that no person shall enter and survey any lands within the bounds set apart for [he said Cherokee Indians, under the penalty of fifty pounds specie, for every such entry so made, to be recovered in any court of law in this state, Ac; and all such entries and grants thereupon, if any should be made, shall be utterly void." In 1784 (North Carolina Laws 4*2, eh. 14), the above act was amended, by authorizing the appointment of three surveyors, viz : " One to survey those lands that lie between the bounds hereafter described for the surveyor of Green county, ami Cumberland mountain ; one to survey the lands that lie between the Cumberland mountain and the river Tennessee ; and one to survey the lands that lie between the Tennessee and the Mississip] i river." The boundaries here described cover the land reserved, by the act of 1783, for the Cherokee Indians ; but there is no express repeal of the fifth and sixth sections of that act ; and as the act of 1784 can operate upon lands not reserved in the above sections', they cannot be held to have been repealed by implication. The supreme court of North Carolina has decided, in several cases, that the above sections remained in force ; and that the entries and giants made for lands within the the territory described, before the Indian title was extinguished, were void. 1 Murp. 162, 164 ; Conf. Rep. 434 ; 2 N. Car. Law Repos. 451 ; 3 Hawks 163. We come now to examine the exceptions of the plaintiffs in tb<i circuit court; and having considered and decided the controverted points, it will ^ .. not be necessary to examine the exceptions in detail. *Tbe first ' exception was to the refusal of the court to instruct the jury that the sixth section in the above act of 1783, had been repealed : and we think the court did not err in refusing to give the instruction. The second instruction asked was, " that the treaty line of Holston ought to run with the South Carolina Indian boundary, called for in the treaty of Hopewell, made on the 28th of November 1786, until it should reach the termination of the hue described in that treaty, running from the North Carolina boundary to the- South Carolina Indian boundary ; and on reaching that line, should then run with the same, reversed, to the North Carolina boundary ;" which instruction was not given. Some doubt arises from the structure of this instruction, whether the reversed line referred to is the Hopewell treaty line, or the South Carolina Indian boundary. From the maps, the latter line strikes the southern boundary of North Carolina, and from the language of the Holston treaty, this fact seems to have been within the knowledge of the parties. The call is to run " along the South Carolina Indian boundary, to the North Carolina boundary." In the Hopewell treaty line, the southern boundary of North Carolina is not named, but the northern ; from which the line runs to the
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