The question of the legal status of Indians, which for many years, and especially during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, decreased in practical importance, has, since the annexation of the Philippine Islands,, gained a new constitutional value for the reason that upon the islands there are many tribes which for years to come it may be necessary to govern in ways analogous to, if not identical with, those which, in the past, we have employed in the control of the red men in the United States proper. If will, therefore, be well to treat this subject rather more particularly than we should otherwise have done.

The legal, relations of the Indians to various governments, established by their white conquerors, have had reference, broadly speaking: (1) to their rights to the lands occupied by them; and (2) to their political status either as tribes or as individuals.