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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. LXXI water 10 feet deep, there is reported to have been found the bones of a mastodon. As this work progresses during another season many other 'springs and watering plao& which have been found will be put into usable condition, and possibly by persevering. in %his work and by ntil-izing every small water source upon the reserve a fair opportunity to make a civilized living may be given the Navajos. Such a work, how-ever, carried on at mauy and widely separated points, must of necessity be slow and expensive. While upon this subject, I desire to refer briefly, to the condition of &airs in the- SAN JUAN RIVER COONTRY, NEW MEXIOO. By an Executive .order dated April 24, 1886, all those portions of . townships 20 north, ranges 14,115, and 1G west, north of the San Juan . river, were restored to the Navajo lndian reservation. 'Phis strip of territory formerly belonged to the Navajo reservation, but was restored to tho public domain by Executive order of May li', 1884, whereupon white settlers immediately went upon the lands, and their settlements cut the Indians completely off from access to the river with their flocks and herds. It wm to correct this evil, and to right a manifest injustice to the Indians, that the lands were restored to the Indian reservation. Many of the Indians had long resided in thevieinity of the San Juan, and cultivated lands in the fractional townships referred to. The river afforded the only water supply they bad, and this was true also of all who kept their floeku in that part of the Navajo reserve. To take the Imds along the river from them, was to render the whole feaervation for 50 miles or more south entirely uninhabitable both for man and beast. TheIndianscomplained bitterly, audit is due to their forbeamnce a8 much perhaps as to the presence of troops, that blocdshed was pre-vented. Although the lands were r6stored to the Indiana by competent au-thority, the settlers wonld not give up possession of the lands which they held, nor allow the Indians to cross the same with their flocks and herds to reach the water. Beiugrepmtedly warnedof the danger of an out-break, the Department determined to insist thatthe settlers should not iuterfere with theaccess of theIndiaus to theriver, and that they should not occupy or use any land exoept that which was covered bytheir fil-ings, and not even that to the exclusion of the Indians from access to the river with their flocks and herds. The Department was not disposed to ,require the removal of the set-tlers who had settled upon the lands in good faith, in advance of the final determination of their claims, and until they shoula be paid for their improvements, unless such removal should be found necessary for the preservation of peaee and the security of life and property in the locality; and it was with that undershuding that the War Department was requested to station a military force there of su6cient strength to |
