PREFACE.

In revising and compiling the Statutes of the Muskogee Nation, I have adopted a different system from that heretofore followed by other compilers. Instead of distributing the statutes under chapters, articles, sections and dates of approval, which has heretofore proved cumbersome and unsatisfactory, I have followed the plan of arranging acts of a similar character under appropriate chapters, with the numbers of the sections running continuously without reference to the chapters. I believe this arrangement will prove eminently satisfactory, as it is less complicated than when there are many articles and sections numbered alike. Any section of a statute may be found by simply giving the number of the section. The chapters I have arranged according to importance, and the index alphabetically.

The statutes at large have never been revised in a proper manner since 1867, and for that reason many statutes which have been repealed or amended have appeared in the printed statutes as they were originally passed. Many statutes which now appear in print and are apparently in force, have, upon a careful comparison with later enactments, proven to be very much modified and often wholly superseded.

I have carefully re-written every act and inserted amendments in their proper places, and dropped phrases or portions of laws which have been repealed by subsequent