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Show REPORT OF THE COMMIB8IOIiER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 63 all outside influences, has beeu so msuy time. represented to you by me during the past year that I forhear ppresslng the subject any further. (Annual Report Commin-sioner of Indian Affairs for 1870, p. 76.) I 1 In a report made in 1871, Hon. John V. Farwell said: 1 There ctre at present about one hundred settlers in-the valley, all of them squat-ters, knowing when they came that it as8 set eaide for Indian oeoop%noy, hot the fact that no survey has been made has emboldened some of thkm to take up claims inside the reaersation fences, under the swamp-laud act. I rode over these swamp-lands, and should consider them as valnable far cultivation es any in the valley. One large farm of 2,500 acres is claimed by a former snperintsndent, and I wen informed that the work of fencing, eto., was all done by Indians. Timber claims and oattls ranges have been taken by these settlers upon the mountains nntil the reservation cattle hsve been drivenfrom their ~ocustomed planes for feeding, and are shot at sight when found opon a range taken np by a white settler. On some of the timber claims thus made the olaimcluts threaten to shoot m g Indians sent there by the agent to get timber for fenoes or houses. (Annual Report of Commie eioner of Indian Affairs for 1871, p. 155.) In a report dated January 31,1871, upon a hill for the restoration of a portion of the Round Valley Reservation, Commissioner Parker, after reciting the history of the reservation, saiid: The effect of the bill, if it becomes a law, will be direqt eoonflictionwith the polioy of the Department, and if its provisions should be executed and the majority of this vaHey usss into the ownernhip and ooonpanay of whites, the nsefulness of the re-mainder for Indian purposes wquld be virtu all^ destroyed. In officereport dated October 17,1871, it was recommended that the AttorneyGeneral be requested $0 institute proceedings against all persons within Round Valley in all cases where he shoi~ld be of the I oplnlon that action for trespass could be maintained. November 6, 1871, certified copies of the papers relating to the case were transmit-ted to Superintendent Whiting for use of the district attorney, with a full statement of facts, with direotious to render the district attorney all facilities in the prosecution of cases arising under instructions given him by the Attorney-General in pursuance of the foregoing recommen-dation. In a report dated June 3,1872, Superintendent Whiting reported that suit had been commenced against two of the trespassers, as test cases, but that on the 3d of April preceding, the district attorney had re-ceived a telegraphic dispatch and order from the Attorney-General to. suspend proceedings against the settlers until further instructions. Superintendent Whiting remarked that he was not surprised at this action, as he knew that an assessment bad been levied upon the set-tlers to raise funds with which to send an attorney to Washington, and said : So long as the settlers msiutaiu a plaid lobby in Washington it will require vigi-l8nee on behalf of the Indian Department to prevent further misahief and to keep what little possession we hsve left in Ronnd Valley. He also suggested an enlargement of the reservation. |
