OCR Text |
Show Congress wd was favorably reported by the Committee on Indian Affairs (H. R. Report 1892). It is urged that final action be had on the bill at the coming session of Congress. This bill nnthorizes the appointment of a commissio~~teor investigate and make a report of the title of the individual members of the Chip pewa and Christian Indians of Franklin County, Kans., to the several tracts o'f land within their reservation for which certificates hwe been issned under the treaty of 1859, and to make a census of said I n d i s ; and when the report shall have been ~oadeth e bill authorizes the issu-anceof patents to those entitled to theland held by them. The residueof their lands are to be appraised and sold to the highest bidder at a price not less than the appraisedvalue. The bill also authorizes the Secretary pf the Interior to pay to said Indians, in his discretion, per capita, the sum of $42,560.36, trust funds now to their credit on the books of the Treasury Department. XWERAL EXTRIES ON THE NORTH HALF OF COLVILLB RESERVATION, WASH. By the act of Congress which became a law without the President's approval on July 1,1891 (27 Stat. L., 62),it was provided that after the lands should have been surveyed and allotments made to the Indians who elected to remain on the north half of the OolvilleReserve, that portion of the reservation should, by proclamation of the President, be restored to the public domain, and be disposed of under the general laws appli-cable to the disposition of public lauds. As the required surveys have not been completed such Executive proclamation has not yet been issued. However, the opinion has prevailed among settlers and miners in that locality that there were valuable mineral deposits, particularly of gold, in the north half of that reserve. Congress accordingly anticipated the Executive action provided for in the aforesaid act of July 1, 1891, by passing the act approved February 20,1896 (29 Stat. L., 9), which authorized mineral locations and entries at once on that portion of the reserve. Only a few weeks had .elapsed after the passage of that act before this office began. to receive complaints from the Indians, and letters from the white entrymen themselves, indicating a clear and deter-mined purpose on the part of the latter to use their right to make mineral entries for the purpose of gaining a foothold ou the reservation. Placer claims were st,aked off on lands which were inclosed with feuoe and eultivated by Indians. In the language'of one of these would-be settlers, this was donewith the "intention of proving np and then lay-ing off a townsite." He frankly stated that "there is not enough gold to yay to work, and in many places hardly enough to swear by," and that although thelands he desired were inside of an Indian's inclosure, |