| OCR Text |
Show 70 REPORTO' F THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. sion, February 27,ld85, the committee submitted its'mport (Senate Re'- port No. 1522, Forty-eighth Congress, second session). The committee found, what had been well kno'wn to' and repeatedly reported by this Office for ten years, that some 97,000 acres of the 102,000 in the re~ervationw ere occupied by trespassers, and that 44,000 sheep and 1,600 head of horses, cattle, and hogs were grazed upon the reser-vation by these men. They also stated that the Government,for the last twelve or thirteen years had been obliged to pay during that time for the support of the few Indians upon the reservation the aum of $241,975.93, an average of $20,165 per year, while the reservation con-tained land well calculated for the support of many more Indians than. were to be found in the State of Oalifornia. Their report also said that the act of 1873-- Provided for all such improvementa as then existed upon the land put there by men who went there as settlers, and these should he paid for; hut it furnishes no ground for the claim of other parsons but those who were then the ownera of improvements upon the land and their ereoting new improvementa or maintsining any possessiou of the land nrhatever while waitinr for the United States to n- er the oriainal settlers for the improvements they then had. In the opinion of the committee, all persons except those who had aotunllg ereated in~provementsu pon this land prior to that act are tresoassers. and that those nersons who ware then oiouoants and have never been tendered the appraised value of their improvements aan at most alaiol the oooupanoy of hut 160 acres while waiting for the payment provided for in the act,. This ha8 been the opinion of this Office since 1873, but unfortunately the courts of the United States have held a different opinion and deoided that one person might occupy 10,000 acres of land until a few corrals, shooks, and cabins had been appraised and paid for. In oonolusiou, the committee said: The oreaent condition of thine-8 oo-zb t not lonrer to ooutinne. If these occnoauts u have any claim upon the Government growingout of the failure on its part to comply with the statute of 1873 it is quite tins6 the matter was considered and every claim of that kind s~tiefied. . [This Office had been trying to have this done for ten years, but Con-gress had turned a deaf ear to its appeals.] . The committee are of the opinion that the earliest measures should he taken' to reduce the houndariesof this reservation to the present want of theIndiaus. * . A few thousand acres of valley land, with perhaps s amall portion of uplirnd for gnL5 ing plfrposes, is all that can he utilized for their benefit. To theseneeds the limits of the reservation, ahould be reduced, and all Indiana capshlc of taking care of them- . selves should be put upon a 8offiaient amount of this valley land, each in severalty, and in quantity sufficient for his support. * . The committee think that a oommission shoold be appointed to appraise this land, in quantities of not more than 640 acres,' and that it should thereafter be 8old st auo-tion to the highest bidder above said appraisal, and the proceeds, bfter defraging the exoenaea of the sale md reduction, should he held by the United States in trust for these Indians, or such other Indiana as justice and equity msy reqorre. The neaes-sity of making some such disposition ad this of the reservation is very pressing, and a longer continuance of the present state of things is a waste of large resources, and is soffer~ngth e Indiana to drift away into useless aa well as spasmodic efforts to sua-tain themselves, while the Government properqy is going to decaf. |
