Longest v. Langford

By prior enactments couched in general terms Congress had put in force in the Indian Territory, and mad# applicable to the people therein irrespective of race, several statutes of Arkansas.^[1] One of these Arkansas statutes — ■ chapter 20 of Mansfield’s Digest — had been construed as recognizing a form of curtesy consummate attaching on the death of the wife intestate where she was then seized of the land. Another — chapter 49 of the same publication — related to descent and distribution. The Choctaw and Chickasaw lands were in the Indian Territory, and so were the lands of several other Indian tribes. The claim in this case is rested on the adopted Arkansas law of curtesy.

The second of the two agreements — it largely superseded the first — required that the lands of the two tribes be allotted among the enrolled members who were living at the date of its ratification. Anticipating that some of these might die before the allotments were made, the agreement provided in § 22:

“ If any person whose name appears upon the rolls, prepared as herein provided, shall have died subsequent to the ratification of this agreement and before receiving his allotment of land the lands to which such person would have been entitled if living shall be allotted in his name, and shall, together with his proportionate share of other tribal property, descend to his heirs according to the laws of descent and distribution as provided in chapter forty-nine of Mansfield’s Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas.”