uch rights as the Crown of Spain and its authorities
possess in respect of the official archives and records, executive as
well as judicial, in the islands above referred to, which relate to
said islands or the rights and property of their inhabitants. Such
archives and records shall be carefully preserved, and private persons
shall, without distinction, have the right to require, in accordance
with the law, authenticated copies of the contracts, wills, and other
instruments forming pact of notarial protocols or files, or which may
be contained in the executive or judicial archives, be the latter in
Spain or in the islands aforesaid.

Article IX. Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the
territory over which Spain by the present treaty relinquishes or cedes
her sovereignty, may remain in such territory or may remove therefrom,
retaining in either event all their rights of property, including the
right to sell or dispose of such property or of its proceeds; and they
shall also have the right to carry on their industry, commerce, and
professions, being subject in respect thereof to such laws as are
applicable to other foreigners. In case they remain in the territory
they may preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by making,
before a court of record, within a year from the date of the exchange
of ratifications of this treaty, a declaration of their decision to
preserve such allegiance; in default of which declaration they shall be
held to have renounced it and to have adopted the nationality of the
territory in which they may reside.

The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the
territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by
the Congress.

Article X. The inhabitants of the territories over which Spain
relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty shall be secured in the free
exercise of their religion.

Article XI. The Spaniards residing in the territories over which Spain
by this treaty cedes or relinquishes her sovereignty shall be subject
in matters civil as well as criminal to the jurisdiction of the courts
of the country wherein they reside, pursuant to the ordinary laws
governing the same; and they shall have the right to appear before such
courts and to pursue the same course as citizens of the country to
which the courts belong.

Article XII. Judicial proceedings pending at the time of the exchange
of ratifications of this treaty in the territ