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Show been removed, and any member of these tribes 21 years of age was privileged, by the above-quoted clause, to dispose of all of his domain, in excess of 80 &cres, which had been assigned to him as a home. Under the authority thus granted, speculators, land sharks, and some bona fide settlers vied with each other in their hasty attempts to pur-chase the lands and homes of these Indians, until the more sensible and provident members of the tribes became darmed and urged the Govern-ment to put a stop to this wholesale disposal of their lands before the tribes should be entirely robbed of their individual holdings. In fact, before the, rules and regulations prescribed by the act could be properly prepared by this office, approved by the Department., pnnted, and sent out to the Sac and FOXA gency for general circulation and information, over one hundred deeds had been received here, covering all the land these individual Indians severally owned and were allowed under the act to sell. The prices named in the deeds at once attracted the attention of this office, being much below the rates fixed by Corlgress to he paid for the remainder of the lands ceded to the United States after selections of allotments should have been made by the Indians. (See mection 16 of act of March 3,1891,26 Stat.,p. 102G.) Indeed, theutmost difficultyhasbeen experienced by this office to obtaii~a fair valuation for the various tracts sold and to secure evidence of the payment of the consideration money and its retention by the Indian and to restrain the Iudian from return-ing a portion of the purchase money to the purchaser. Some of these Indians may use the purchase money to inclose and improve the land retained; if so, then the saleshould be consummated, for many of them have not the means td break laud and build houses nor to inclose their lands so as to pn~tect them from trespass by the L'grazing leasers." These instances, however, are few and hard to detect, the large majority of sales beiug mainly in the interest of the purchasers. On their part the purchasers are encouraged in their movements by public sentiment in. that region, it being well known that until the lands get into possession and ownership of white men and thereby become tax-able, the counties are contracted to that extent in their power to develop and improve, for lack of funds which would be derived from taxatiou of those lands. From the character of the conveyances submitted nuder this legis-lazion and the difficulty of securing their just rights for the Indians, I most urgently recommend that if Congress will not repeal the present law on the subject, at least it do not enaot similar legislation for many yea,rs to come respecting the sale of land by any tribe to whom lands in severalty have been allotted and patented under the general allot- . ment act of 1887, known as the "Dawes Act," with its amendment of 1891. |
