Bates v. Aven

Citations

• 60 Miss. 955

Syllabus

<p>1. LAND. Purchase from, State after secession. Effect on title of United States.</p> <p>The purchase of, and payment for, public land, bought in April, 1861, from officers acting under an ordinance passed by the convention which had previously enacted the ordinance of secession, conferred upon the purchaser no title or right as against the United States.</p> <p>2. Dancing Babbit Creek Treaty. Orphan lands. Title thereto. Adverse possession.</p> <p>By the sixth section of the nineteenth árticle of the Treaty of Dancing Babbit Greek, entered into between the United States and the Choctaw Indians (Hutchinson’s Code, 125), there were reserved out of the lands ceded by the Choctaws as many quarter sections of land as there were orphan Indians in the Choctaw nation; which lands were to be selected by the United States government, and sold with the consent of the President, “ and the proceeds applied to some beneficial purpose for the benefit of the said orphans.” Held, that when the lands were selected as contemplated by this provision of the treaty the title to the whole vested in the United States, for the benefit of the orphans as a class, and no particular orphan acquired title to any particular quarter section thereof. So that the Statute of Limitations would not run in favor of one in the adverse possession of any of this land, the title being in the United States, and not in the orphans.</p>