OCR Text |
Show I REPORT OF THE COI~MIBBIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 159 "within the Choctaw-Chickasaw country, and on proof of the fact of bonafidesettle-ment may be enrolled by the United States commission and by the Secmhwy of the Interior as Choctaws entitled to allotment. MISCELLANEOUB. The commission is now engaged in completing the rolls of the various nations and in classifying and appraising the lands. The only roll of citizens of any of the Five Civilized Tribes that has thus far been approved by the Department is that of the Seminole citizens already referred to. Classifying Jmds.-As the agreements and the Curtis Act provide that the lands shall be allotted in severalty to the members of the tribes according to value, taking into consideration "the nature and fertility of the soil" and the location of the land, the work of appraising and classifying the lands of the different tribes haa been a matter of con-siderable magnitude. On account of the peculiar wording of the law it has been necessary fo14 the appraising parties to go upon and examine the nature of the soil of almost every 40-acre tract in the Indian Ter-ritory. This has required considerable time and has necessitated the incurring of considerable expense. All the expense in connection with classifying, appraising, and allotting the lands and the making of rolls of the vai+ous tribes is borne bythe United States Government. The appra~singp arties, in classifying and appraising the land, fix the value thereof, except on account of its location and its proximity to the market. Thisvalue is added by the commission after the appraisers shall have determined the value of the land in accordance with the character and fertility of the so~l. Chickasaw incompetents.-The act of Congress approved May 31, 1900 (31 Stats., 221), contains the following clause: That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to pay out and distribute in the following manner the sum of two hundred and six- & thousand six hundred and seventy-nine dollar. and forty-eight cents, which amount was appropriated by the ad of June twenty-eighth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and credited to the "incampetent fund" of the Chickasaw Indian Nation on the books of the United States Treasury, namely: First, there shall be paid to such survivors of the original beneficiaries of said fund and to such heirs of deceased beneficiaries as shall, within six months from the pa988ge of this act, satis factorily establih their identity in such manner as the Secretary of the Interior may nrescribe and also the amount of such fund to which they are severally entitled, their respective sharea; and second, so much of said fund ae is not paid out upon claims satisfactorily established as aforesaid shall be distributed per capita among the members of said Chickasaw Nation, and all claims of beneficiaries and their respedi\.e heirs for participation in said incompetent fund not presented within the period aforesaid shall be, and the same are hereby, barred. Acting under this authority of law, the Indian agent was instructed to give notice that those persons who claim to be Chickasaw incompe-tents or the descendants of Chickasaw incompetents would be allowed |