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Show XI1 REPORT 017 TIIE CO3lhlISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. Thus it mill be seen that the more eoterprising.among these Indians hare in actual cultivation. and under fence, many times more land'than their per capita share, and yet the land belongs equally to all.. Asstated * - in my report for last year: The rich Indians who cuHivat,te tribal lands pay no rent to the poorer end more unfortunate of thsir mow, although they are equal ownors ofthe soil. The rich &en . have too large homesteads and control many times more than their share of tho Ian& It,will not do to say, as tho wealthy and influentid leaders of the nations contend, that their system of laws gives to everyindividual member of the tribeequal facilities to be indeasndent and canal ouuoriunitv to aossess himself of a homestead. Alreadv tent, andsatilllargernumlrsr are cultivating between 600 and 1,000acres. Now, think of one Indian having a farm fenced in of 1,000 acres, with the right, according to their system (aa I understand the fact to be), of adding nearly 1,000 sores more by excluding all others from the use ar oocupanoy of a quarter of a mile in width all arolnd the tract fenced. Whst a baronial lest,ats! lntheory the lands me held in commonunder the trib&llrelatition, an& are equally owned by each member of the tribe,,hut in point of fact they are sinlply held in the granping hand of moneyed monopolists and powerful and influential leaders and politiciaps, who pay no rental to the other members of the tribe, who, nuder their tribal ownership in common, have equal rights with the occupants. A case of thia sort cams under my personal observation on a, visit to the Creek Nrt-tion in 1885. I was credibly informed that one of the Creeks had under fence over 1,000 acras, and of course, undnr their laws ard usages, he had the right to excinda all other members of the tribe from claiming any land embraced within the limits of a quarter of a mils in width surrounding the inclosed farm of 1,000 aoreq provided he made the first loontion. This estate was handsomely manaed, with many mod-' arn mcthods and improvements. A costly residence stood upon it, and large, oommo-dious barns, 8t~hleso,t o., were provided. The owner cultivated this farm with labor-ers hired among his own race-perhaps his own kith and kin-st $16 per month, an'd they lived in huta and cabins on the plaoe,without s, month's provisions ahead for themselves and familien. They owned, of course, their tribal interest in the land. but the proceeds of the valuable crops whioh were raised by their labor swelled the plethorio pockets of the proprietor. In this instance, the crops grown, iu adattion to large quantities of hay, consisted of 25,OW hu+ls of corn, fattening for market 200 head of beef cattle and 300 head of hogs. The proprietor grows annually richer, while the laborers, his o m raoe, joint owners of the soil, oven of the lands that he claim and individually appropriates, gmw annually and daily poorer and less able to assert their equal ownwrship And tribal olaimend, ahall I say, oonstitutionaf privi-lege and treaty rights. Now this condition of semi-slavery, shall I call it, exists in eooh of the five civilieed nations, and grove directly out of the holding of lauds in common, and is necsassrily ' inherent in this system of tenantry. , ' The fact that the fivecivilized tribes hold their lands practically in fee-simple, althoogh without the power of alienation except by consent of the Government, must always place the landed rights of these Indians in a different position from those of any other tribes. Without their consent the Govern-ent can not force upon them the division of their lands. But the giving of consent'to such a division was contemplated years ago in their treaties: The Cherokee treaty of 1866 says : Whene~etrh e Cherokee Ndtional Council shall request it the Seoretrry of the In-terior shall oanse the country reserved for the Cherokees to be surveyed and allotted among them at the expense of the United States. |