OCR Text |
Show 52 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. effort should be made to obtain the full value of the timber to be dis-posed of, and that the Indians shonld be employed by the operators wherever their services could be made available; and it was suggested that in these logging operations the best features of the Menomonee plan be adopted where practicable. On account of reports that had been received in the Indian Office that there was but little dead timber on these reservations, and that on the pretense of cntting dead timber large quantities of green tirn-ber had been cut, this oBce sent a special agent to make an investiga-tion. From his report, which was received December 12, 1898, it appeared that there was not snfficient dead timber to warrant the pro-posed logging, and also that in previous years, nnder authority for log-ging given from time to time, large quantities of green timber had been cut and sold as dead timber. In view of this the office did not pro-mulgate the authority granted by the Secretary on December 6, 1898, 80 that the season passed without any logging operations on the diminished reservations being entered upon by the Indians. Logging operations, however, were carried on on the ceded lands through the Commissioner of the General Laud Office, and these opera-tions were nnder his supervision under regulations prescribed by the Secretary on Angnst 26, 1898. Daring the winter many complaints vere received in this ofice from Indians of the Leech Lake country, charging that green timber was being cut in large quantities; but officers of the General Land Office having charge of the cntting of the timber reported that there was nothing in these wmplaints, and no action was taken to stop the oper-ations until Congress took up the matter on representations made to it by delegates from the Indian tribes who were interested. The Indian appropriation act approved March 1,1899 (30 Stat. L., 924), authorized and directed the Secretary of the Interior-to cause investigation to be made by an Indian inspector and a speoial Indian agent of the alleged cutting of green timber under contracts for cutting "dead and down" on the Chlppewa ceded and diminished res-ervations in the State of Minnesota, and also whether tho present plan of estimating and examining timber on said lands and sale thereof is the best that call he devised for the protection of the interests of said Indians, and also in his discretion to Suspelld further estimating, appraising, examining, and cutting qf timber and the sale of same, and also suspend the sale of lands on s a ~ dre servation. Pnrsnaut to this authority of law, the Department, by letters of March 30, 1899, addressed to the Commissioner of the General Land Officea nd to this office, directed a snspensio~ol f all operations of what-ever kind or character relating to the cutting or sale of timber on the ceded lands and to the sale of the ceded lands of the Chippewas of Minnesota. As no timber operations were being condncted nnder the direction of this office, which has jurisdiction only over the diminished reservations, the only operations to be suspended were those that were being coaduoted under the jurisdiction of the General Land Officg. |