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Show 1 28 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIES. Puyallup Reservation, Wash.-The act of March 3,'1893 (27 Stats., 612), authorized the President to appoint three persons whose duty it should be to select and appraise such portions of the allotted lands of the Puyallup Indian Eeservation, Wash., as are not required for homes for the Indian allottees, and also that portion of the agency tract, exclusive of the burying ground, not needed for school pur-poses; to ascertaiu the true owners of the allotted lands; to have guardians appointed for the nlinor heirs of any deceased allottees; and, upon the approval of the selections and appraisement.s by the Secretary of the Interior, to superintend the sale of the same and make deeds of the lands to the purchasers thereof subject to the approval of the Secretary, with the provision that the portion of the agency tract selected for sale should be plat,ted into streets and lots as an addition to the city of Tacoma, etc. October 30, 1893, the President ap])ointed James J. Anderson, of Nashville, 111.; Ross J. Alexander, of Bridgeport, Ohio, and John W. Renfroe, of Atlanta, Ga., to be cornmis~ionerfso r the purpose indicated. Instrn~tionsa s to their duties were prepared November 6,1893, and approved by the Department November 14; and November 21 the com-missioners were directed to proceed to the Puydlup Agency and enter upon the discharge of the duties assigned them. They are now in the field carrying out the instructions given, and although they have met with a determined opposition by a few Indiana and white men in the prosecution of their work, it is thought that they will be successful in their mission and thus dispose of one of the most perplexing questions before this office. Great pressure has been brought upon Congress to take the saleand disposition of these Indian lands from the control and supervision of this Department, but that body has steadily refused to enact any law to that effect. A former commission estimated the value of the agency tract to be $1,000 per acre, or $585,000, a d re ported thevalue of the allotted lands of the reservation to be., as near as they could arrive at it, approxi-mately $4,776,130, or an average, of $273.50 per acre. They also reported that 9,200 acres, or more than half of the area of these allotted lands, were covered by so-called leases or contracts procured and still held by white men. These contracts were in reality of the nature of alienation and were intended by the persons who made them to be ips0 facto deeds, by providing that the leaae should renew itself at the expiration of every two years, the limit fixed by the treaty of December 26,1854, until the restrictions as to alienation should beremoved, where-upon the contract under the lease for the alienation of the property would become operative, conveying the property absolutely and com-pletely. It is evident that the contracts referred to are a violation of the treaty and the patent under which the Pnyallup lands are held. If the contracting parties could enforce their agreements they would |