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Show .~,. 2.. ,. , ~ . . , . , . , , . . REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF 'INDIAN AFFAIILS. It is .believed that the work which was commenced on the Siletz Reservation, in Oregon, in 1887, and c.ontinned for a short time only, should be resumed and completed at an early day, additional surveys having been made. A portion of the Sioux Indians at the Pine Ridge Agency, S. Dak., are desirous of taking their allotments at an early day, and the agent at the Crow Creek and Lower Brul6 Agency, S. Dak., reports that the Indians of this agency most earnestly desire their lands allotted with-ont delay. Although the agreement couclnded with the Sioux under the act of March 2, 1889, provides for allotments, Congress has thus far failed to make an appropriation either for the requisite surveys or for the pay and expeusas of the necessary special agents to be '' appointed by the President for that purpose." The draught of an item appropriating $100,000 for surveys on the diminished Sioux reservations, and of one appropriating $10,000 for pay and expeusev of special agents, were snb- , mitted to the Department on the 12th of @arch last. I deem it im- : portant that these appropriations should be made, that there may be no nunecessary delay in carryingout the agreement with t.11ese Indians, looking to the early division of their lands. The allotments to the Chippewas of Minnesota, particularly to those I ' who elect to remainon their present rese~vationaw~h ich are t,o be made by the Chippewa commission, will doubtless be made, in part at least, during the present fiscal year. The allotments provided for in the agreements concluded by tha Cherokee commission, referred to elsewhere, will ueed to be made dur-ing the year, if the bills ratifying the agreements should become laws during the present session of Congress. Reference was made in my last annual report to the inequitable division of land provided by thegeneral allotment act, whereby married women are deprived of all share in the tribal lands and children are allowed but half the quantity given single adults. In accordance with the views therein expressed, the draught of an act was prepared and submitted to Congress, through the Department, amending the first section of the act of February 8, 1887, so as to give each member of a tribe 160 acres of land on all reservations where the quantity of landis sufficient, arid to divide other reservations so as to give each member of the tribe a pro rata share of the tribal lands. A bill providing in its first section for the allotment of 80 acres of land to any Indian woman who is married, or who i s living in married life under the laws and customs of the tribe to which she belongs, passed the Senate April 23,1800. This remedies to a, limited extent, the de-fect of the original act, and increases the amount of land to be allotted to the tribe occupying the reservation. It does not, however, remove ' ' the injustice and inequality of giving the younger members of the tribe I |
