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Show XXXIV REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. . . ered for the onrposes of eale alone-in other words, if the cutting Of the timber was the principal thing and not the incident-then the cutting wonld be wrongful,and the timber, whun out, become the absolute property of the United Statea. These are familiar principles in this country and well settled as applicable to ten- . I , ants for life and remainder-men. Bot a tenant for life has alltherights of oocnpnoy . . in the lends of a remainder-man. The Indians have the same rights in the landa of . ~ their reservations. What a tenant for life may do upon the lands of a, remainder-man theIndians may do upon their reservations, hut no more. (United States v. Cook, 19 Wallace, 591.) In iits annual report for 1879 this office recommended that Congress enact a law to prevent the wanton destruction of timber on Indian lands. The law as contained in sections 2118, 2147, and 2148 of the Revised etatutes, relative to intrusion and depredation on Indian land, had proved ineffectual to prevent tho cutting and destroying of timber standing thereon. Section 5388 of the Revised Statutes, which pro. vides a penalty for the wanton cutting of timber on lands belonging to the United States, had been declared inapplicable to Indian lands by a decision rendered in the United States district court for the western district of Arkansas, that the lands within the Cherokee Reservation in the Indian Territory were not lands of the United States i u the sense of the language used in section 5388, which decision applied with equal force to the lands of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and other Indians. Ninegears elapsed, however, before Congress en-acted the necessary legislation by so amendiug said section 5388 as to extend its provisions to timber upon any reservation or lands be- . longing to or occapied by any tribe under authority of the United States. (25 Stats., p. 166.) Relative to the application of section 53E8, as amended, to lands for which Indians have received patents under provisions of treaty, Acting AttorneyGeneral Jenks, on September 21,1888, rendered an opiniou in the negative as follows: Inasmuch, then, aa lands held as above, by Indian allottoes, can not be called properly Indian reservations, a term whioh Congrew has clearly used to indicate those tracts or bodies of land set apart from the public domain for the occupstion of Indian communities at the pleasure of the United Statea, hut without soy pnrpose to inpest the occupants with more thm a right of possession, end inasmuoh as the lands covered by the statute are not "lands belonging to or occupied by any tribe of Indians under authority of the United States," the cutting or destroying of timber on land vhich is thus held in severalty by one who is clothed wit,h the right of citi-zenship and protected by and subjeoted to all the laws, civil and criminal, of tho Territory in which the land lies, is not an offense ponishahle under the act of Cou-gress of the 4th of June, 1888. This opinion, fully set forth in Annual Reportfor1.888, p. liv, though rendered respecting the lands at the Pnyallup Agency, applies with equal force to all lands held in severalty. RESERVATIONS PATENTED TO INDIAN TRIBES. Patents have been issued to the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Greek Na-tions for the tracts respectively defined by treaty stipulations as follows: December 31,1838, to the Cherokee Nation forever upon oonditions, |