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Show 8 COMMISSIONER 08 INDIAN APFAIRS. of its kind ever undertaken, resulting in allotment of lands in sev-eralty to upward of 90,000 persons. Through a succession of events these individualized holdings in land and the individual affairs of thg allottees have come under the Union Agency of the Indian Offica. Even after extensive removals of restrictions on alienation and the like, administration of affairs of members of the Five Civilized Tribes whose lauds are still restricted from alienation reaches great proportions. Almost necessarily allotment proceeded by rule of thumb; further-more, designation of lands in severalty was not accompanied on any broad scale with equipment in training or in improvements and implements. As a consequence, in many parts of the country Indians were land poor, often possessing fertile lands but having no means to utilize them. To furnish individual Indians with an opportunity to secure inclination and training and a provision of working capital has been the great task of the past 10 years. A vast dm1 remains to be done, but something has been accomplished. Legislation was necessary as a basis for progreas in this direction. An act of 1902 permitted the Indians to sell allotments which they had inherited; an act of 1906 gave the Secretary of the Interior authority to issue patents in fee to allottees of whose competency to manage their own affairs he was satisfied; and an act of 1910 in addition to strengthening the earlier statutes enabled allottees to devise their lands. Somewhat similar legislation has affected al-lottees in the Five Civilized Tribes. Under the legislation affecting allottees outside the Five Civilized Tribes there have been sold 874,446 acres of inherited land for $13,411,000, and 215,186 acres of land held by incompetent Indians for $3,394,000; 6,167 patents in fee have been issued for a total of 638,870 acres. Thus, out of an allotted area of 17,000,000 acres 1,728,000 acres have been alienated or made alienable through this ofice and the department. Furthermore, in the Five Civilized Tribes, where 15,700,000 acres were allotted, 8,000,000 acres were made alienable by the act of May 27,1908. In districts where Indian lands qrre desirable, the results of allotment accompanied by policies of leasing and of sale are illustrated by the situation at Wiebago, Nebr.: Forty-eight per cent of the allotted lands are under lease, 13 per cent are being farmed by Indians, and 39 per cent have been sold. As has been indicated, the purpose of the legislation permitting sales and authorizing the issue of patents in fee was to enable Indians to change holdings in land which they would not need as land into another form of property which they could utilize to improve and cultivate land which they kept, or which they could have as capital in occupations other than farming. These purposes were not at-tained in any reasonable degree when the first sales of inherited |
