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Show LVIII REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIFB. of the Tonkawqs upon their reserve, and the Oakland Reservation seemed to be well adapted to the wants of the Toukawas, for whotq the improvements made for the Nee Perc6s were available. Previous to their departure, the Nez PercBs, for whose use and benefit the Oakland Reser.vation had been conveyed to the United States in trust by the Cherokee Nation, relinquished all their right, title, and in-terest in and to the lands included in the reservation. It is now pro-posed to ask Congress to confirm to the Tonkawas by a valid title a sufficient qua.ntity of ladd belonging to this reservation to provide for all their wants. KICK~POO ALLOTTEES UNDER TEEATY OF 1862. In each of his four annual reports my predecessor called attention to . the condition of asair$ relative to the estates of deceased and female allottees under the provisionaof the Eickapoo treaty of Jnne 28,1862 (13 Stats., 623). At the 6rst session of the last Congress thematter was snbmitted to that bcdy for the third time, but the bill, although it passed the Senate, failed to reoeive consideration in the House of Represent% ' tiveg. In the pTM6Ut condition of affairs females cannot receive pat-ents for the lands allotted them under the treaty, and the estates of de-ceased allottees cannot be settled. I think the attention of Congress should once more be called to the subject. ATTEMPTED SETTLENEEITS .TN THE INDIAN TERB*lTORY. At the datepf the last annual report of this office the Oklahoma colo-nists had just been ejected by the military from the Cherokee Outlet lands, south of the Hausas line. Payne, with a nuu~beorf old offenders, was arrested and sent to Fort Smith, Ark., where they were turned over to the United Statesmarshal September 8,1884. There,, it is un-derstood, Payne Was released upon his own recognizance of $1,000 and - turned loose, and the commanding genera1 reported that he was back at Hnnnewell, organizing another expedition for the Indian Territory, before the troops who took him to Fort Smith could return. Subsequent to this the sndden death of Payne, who for years had been the acknowl-edged leader uf the Oklahoma movement, was abnounced. He was succeeded by one W. L. Couch, under whose leadership in the latter part of December, 1884, a large body of armed men again en-tered the Territory with the avowed object of kffecting a permanent set-tlement, encamping at Stillwater, on the Oimarron River, whence they defied tho military to remove. them. Couch, the leader, was reported gs willing .to risk a collision with the troops, as likely to aropse public sympathy, and compel favorable action by Congress in opening the coveted lands to settlement. After maintaining a determined shorn of resistance for some weeks, their provisions giving out, and the troops gradually closing in on them, the intruders, onthe 27th January, 1885,.. |
