OCR Text |
Show CHAPTER VI THE SOLUTION, 1 8 9 4 - 1 8 99 HThe alternative plan for removal had been discussed briefly during the five year A struggle for removal following the negotiations of the 1888 agreement. However, it met a great deal of criticism since it failed to accomplish the basic objective of the residents of Colorado, removal of the Indians from the state. Instead it called for the Indians to remain on a portion of the land they now occupied, and be assigned lands-in- severalty, or allotments. The remaining portions of the reservation could then be opened for white settlement. At the same time the last removal bill was being considered, and rejected bv Congress, such an allotment proposal, an act called the Hunter Bill, was being formulated and presented to Congress. The origins of the Hunter Bill are somewhat confusing but it appears to have originated in the House of Representatives Committee on Indian Affairs after that committee had spent considerable time reviewing and rejecting removal proposals. Andrew J. Hunter, a Representative- at- Large from Illinois and a member of the Indian Affairs Committee, was responsible for its introduction.! Read for the first time on April 23, 1894, the bill was immediately referred back to the Indian Affairs Committee for additional review.* After only five days the bill received the support of the committee and was forwarded to the general assembly for further consideration. i With this reversal by the Indian Affairs Committee, the people who had fought Ute removal now rallied to support the Hunter bill. This immediate and strong recommendation for the bill would seem to indicate a compromise must have been struck with the Colorado delegation. The bill, House Resolution Number 6792, written: . . . to disapprove the treaty heretofore made with the Southern Ute Indians to be removed to the Territory of Utah, and providing for settling them down in severalty where they may so elect and are qualified, and to settle all those not electing to take lands in severalty on the West forty miles of present reservation and in portions of New Mexico, and for other purposes, and to carry out the provisions of the treatv with said Indians on June 15, 1880, . . .4 moved through the House rapidly. By June 18, 1894, it was being introduced to the Senate for consideration. s The Senate, however, failed to match the favorable enthusiasm of the House, and the bill came under attack from several of its members as being unrealistic and unethical. Senator William F. Vilas, former Secretary of the Interior at the time of the negotiating of the 1888 agreement, felt that the Colorado delegation was once again trying to move the Indians onto unproductive land, the western portion of the present reservation, in hopes of opening the eastern and more arable section to white 1. Francis E. Leupp, The Latest Phase of the Southern Ute Question: a Report, ( Phil., Indian Rights AssociaFion, 1895), p. 7. Hereafter cited as Leupp, . . . 2. U. S., Congress, House, " Public Bills, Memorials and Resolutions." Congressional Record, Vol. XXVI, Part 4, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., April 23, 1894. p. 4015. Hereafter cited as Congressional Record, Vol. XXVI, . . . 3. Ibid.. Part 4, House, April 28, 1894. p. 4230: U. S., Congress, House. Southern Ute Indians: Report io Accompany H. R. 6972, House of Representatives. Report No. 799, 53d Cong.. 2d Sess.. Ser. No. 3270, April 28. 1894. pp. 1- 3. 4. Congressional Record. Vol. XXVI, op. cit.. p. 4230. 5. Congressional Record. Vol. XXVI. Part 7. Senate. " Southern Utes." June 18. 1894. p. 6438. - 50- |