OCR Text |
Show REPORT OF COMMISSIONEB OF INDUE AFBA~S. 67 intendent in charge has been requested to call upon the adult Yakima allottees, and upon the natural or legal guardians of minors who are the heirs of deceased Yakima allottees, to return the patents held by them with relinquishments to the United States indorsed thereon. He has also been instructed to inform them that if possession of the originals can not be obtained, the patents will be canceled on the rec-ords of the General Land Office, which under the law (act of April 23, 1904,33 Stat. L., 297) will be as effective as if the original patents bad been returned and canceled. NONRESERVATION ALLOTMENTS. The work of making allotments to nonreservation Indians under the fourth section of the general allotment act of February 8, 1887 (24 Stat. L., 388), as amended by the act of February 28, 1891 (26 Stat. L., 'i94), has been prosecuted as expeditiously as possible during the last year. The rapidity with mhich public land available for Indian allotments is being appropriated renders it important that Indians on the public domain be provided with homes at once before all the land worth taking up passes into the possession of other settlers. Special Allotting.Agent George A. Keepers reported on July 21, 1908, that he had made 469 allotments on the public domain in New Mexico. On July 21, 1908, the President appointed William Williams, of Rome, N. Y., a specialallotting agent, in place of Howard G. Bartlett. Agent Williams will make allotments to Indians on the public domain in California and Arizona in the neighborhood of Needles. Carson Sin76.-In previous reports I have outlined the plan to bring the allotted lands of the Pah Ute Indians in Carson Sink, Nev., within a reclamation project, which was: To extend the Truclree- Carson irrigation project over all these allotments; to cancel existing allotments and dispose of the lands covered by them, except 7 quarter sections, under the homestead laws; to reallot these 7 quarter sections to the Indians in 10-acre tracts with perpetual water rights; and, out of the proceeds of the sale of their surrendered lands, to reiniburse the reclamation fund. It was necessary to obtain authority to cancel unrelinquished pat-ents and an appropriation to defray the cost of reclaiming the lands reserved for reallotment. These were given by the act of April 30, 1908 (35 Stat. L., 85), which authorizes the Secretary of the Interior "to make such arrangement and agreement in reference thereto " as he deems for the best interests of the Indians, and allofvs $13,000 of irigation money to be used "to meet the necessary cost of carrying out this legislation." |