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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFI'AIRS. XXXIII decisions of the courts and acts of Congress in relation to the Indian title to lands, held that section 2116 of the Revised Statutes which declares that "no purchase, grant, lease or other. conveyance of lands or of any title or claim thereto, from any Indian nation or tribe of Indians, shall he of any validity in law or equity, unless t.lle same be made by treaty or conreution entered into pursuant to the Constitution," does not de-pend in its operation upon the nature or extent of the title to the land which the tribe or nation may hold. Whether such title be a fee simple, or a right to occupancy merely, is not material; in either case the statute applies. Whaterer the right or title may be, each Indian tribe or nation is precluded, by the force and effect of the statute, from either alienating or leasing any part of its reservation or imparting any interest or claim in and to t l ~ esa me, without the consent of the Government of the United States. A lease of land for grazing pur-poses is as clearly within the statute as a lease for any other or for general purposes. No general power appears to be conferred by stat-ute upon the President or Secretary or any other officer of the Gov-ernment to make, authorize, or approve leases of lands held by Indian tribes; and the absence of such power mas doubtless one of the main oonsideratious which led to tlle adoption of the act of February 19, 1875 (18 Stats. p. 330), authorizing the Senecas of New Pork to lease lands within the Cattaraugns and Allegany Keservations, etc., which act is significant as showing that, in the view of Cangress, Indian tribes oan not lease their reservations mithout the authority of some law of the United States. !&mber.-Prior to the decision of the Supreme Court in 1873, in the George Cook case (19 Wall., 591), soudry ooutracts were made with indi-viduals for the sale of surplus timber on several reservations in Miu-nesota, t,he funds being applied to the use and benefit of the Indiaus occupying them. By that decision it mas held that if the lands were desired for the purpose of agriculture they might be cleared of their timber to a reasonable extent: and the timber taken off by the Indiaus in such clearing might be sold; but to justify its cutting except for use upon the premises, as timber or its product, it must be done in good faith for the improvement of the land. The improvemellt must be the principal thing, and the cutting of the timber only the incident. Any cutting beyond this would be waste and unauthorized. .The Court further held that : The timber while standing is a part of the realty and it can only be sald as the land could be. The land can not be sold by the Indians, and consequently the tim-ber, nntil rightfully severed, oau not be. It can be rightfully severed for the purpose of improving the land, or the better adapting it to convenient oocopstion, but for no other purpose. When rightfully severed it is no longera, part of the land, and there is no longer a reatrioliou upon it6 sale. Its severance under such oiroruuatances is, in effect, only a legitimate nse of tho land. In theory, at least, the land is better and mare valuable with the timber off than with it on. It has been improved by the remov:l. If the timber should be sev- 9975"** |
