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Show . . . ~ 122 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. Santee Sioux of Nebraska the sum of not to exeeed one thousmddollars per year for eaoh tribe or brand in accordance with the provisions of any oontraot made by said tribes or band8 with any peraon for services as attorney of auoh tribe or band, said contract to be first approvad by the Secretary of the Interior. A better plan, it seems to me, would be an amendment to the law so as to authorize the employmelltof an attorneyor attorneys by theunited States, who should give their whole time to the one purpose of defend-ing the Indiana against- these vzwious claims. This method, I think, would simplify the work and entail an expense quite insignificant as compared with the probable cost of securing attorneys by contract." With these considerations in view, on March 22, last, I submitted the draft of a proposed item to be inserted in the Indian appropriation bill, providing for the employment by the United States of such attor-ney or attorneys, the item being as follows: Th& the Secretary of the Interior be, and is hereby, authorized to expend not ex- - ceeding the sum of $10,000 from the balanoe on hand of the appropriation msde by act of Congress of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat,, 1009), for the iuvsstigation of In-dian depredation claims, in the employment of an attorney and such asslatants ss may be needed, and in paying the necessary expenses in preparing defenses 'in be-half of Indians whose funds are sought to be charged for depredations. The desired legislation was not secured, and I therefore again present the subject, in the hape that some action may be had by Congress de-fining the rights of the Indians in these relations as clearly and satix: factorily as their liabilities have previously been declared in the act of March 3,1891. CHEROKEE FREEDMEN, DELAWARES, AND SHAWNEES. Since the last annual report a supplemental schedule has beenmadeof 9 Delaware and 44 Shawnee Indians who have been found entitled to sharein theper capita distribution of the $75,000 appropriated bythe act of October 19,1888 (25 Stats., 608), oat of the funds of the Cherokee Na-tion for distribution among its Freedmen, Delawares, and Shawnees. The cases of a number of claimants to share in that $75,000 on the plea of being Cherokee Freedmen are now being considered by thi8 Office, and when the evidence has been fully examined a second sup-plemental schedl~leo f such Cherolree Freedmen as. shall be found en- . titled to participate in the fund will be made up and submitted for the approval of the Department. - CHIPPEWA AND MUNSEE RESERVATIONS IN KANSAS. - < In my last annual report I gave at some length the status of the Chippewa and Munsee Indians and their lands. I can pot too strongly urge and renew the recommendations therein made for legislation by Congress in their behalf, which were as follows: In view of this condition of their affairs and tho fact that under the general allot-mcnt act of February 8,1887, they were made citizensof the United States, I respect- -- *For correspondence on this subject see appendix, page 197. |