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Show 130507 by the Indiana as the Chemehuevi "Reservation" and it has been so designated in the records of the Indian Office. About 3,000 acres of the tract was good agricultural land, provided water for irrigation were made available, but the balance of it was fit only for grazing. At present all the 3,000 acres of tillable land, including the eleven public domain allotments, and a large pert of the grazing land, is covered by the waters of the Parker Dam, and the Chemehuevia have been compensated for the damages sustained through the flooding of their lands. Very fev of the Chemehuevi Indians have ever actually lived on the Chemehuevi Reservation. A large number of them have moved to the Colorado River Reservation, have been enrolled there and have taken allotments there; some of them are on the Colorado River Tribal Council; the present Chairman of that Council is a Chemehuevi Indian. The remainder of the Chemehuevi Indians are scattered, living in towns and communities in Nevada, California and elsewhere in the West and Southwest; probably a large majority of them are on some form of relief, or at least are making a precarious living. The next plan for colonising and irrigating the Colorado River Reservation was proposed in 1904 at the instance of the U. S. Geological Survey under authority of the so-called Reclamation Act of 1902. This plan was authorized by Section 25 of the Act of April 21, 1904 (33 Stat., 224) which provided for the reclamation of all or any portion of the irrigable lands on the reservation and the disposal of such lands as though they were a part of the public domain, reserving, however, for allotment to the Indians five acres each of the irrigable lands (for text of Section 25 see attached Appendix A). It is to be noted that this act provided for a change in the policy of the Government announced at the time of the creation of the reservation by directing the disposal of the irrigable lands under the applicable land laws rather than to the Indians of the Colorado River and its tributaries, saving to the Indians, however, only a meager tract of five acres each. This act was amended by the Act of March 3, 1911 (36 Stat., 1063), (for text see attached Appendix A) which increased the proposed allotment to the Indians to 10 acres each of irrigable lands. This act also appropriated $18,000 to defray the cost of the irrigation of the increased allotments for the fiscal year 1912. No expenditures were made nor does it appear that any work was done under the authorization of these two acts except that in 1912 a preliminary survey was made and all Indians then living on the reservation and all of those Indians from the Fort Hojave and the Chemehuevi Reservations who would consent to it, were allotted 10 acres each of lend to be irrigated by a pumping plant. So today we have the population of the Colorado River Reservation comprised principally of members of the Mojave and Chemehuevi Tribes. |
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Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : |