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Show 90 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. December 21,1895, this office submitted to the Department Attorney Darter's final report upon his work in connection with these claims, together with a full history of the subject and the action taken thereon from the time of the filing of the contracts. Tho matter is now pend-ing in the Department. SALE OF OITIZBN POTTAWATOMIE AXD ARSENTEE SHAWNEE LANDS IN OKLAHOMA. In the Indiau appropriation act, approved August 15,1894 (28 Sbat. L., 295), provision nias made for the sale of lands belonging to the Citizen Pottawatomies and Absentee Shawnees, as follows: Thst my member of the Citizen Band of Pottswatomie Indiana and of the Absentee Shnvnea Indians of Oklahomq to whom a trust patent hm heon issued under tho provisions of the act approved February eighth, eighteen hnndred nnd eighty-seven (Twenty-fourzh Statutes, three hundred and eightyeight), eud being over tnent,y-one yesrs of age, may sell and convey any portion of the laud oovered by such patent in csoess of eighty acres, the deed of conveyance to ho subject to approval by the Secretary of the Interior under such rules and regulations ns he may prescribe, ant1 that any Citizen Pottawatomie not residing upon hia nllotmsnt, but being 5 legal resident of mother State or Territory, nlay in like manuer sell and convey all the land covered by Said patent, and that upon the approval of 8och deed by the Secretary of the Interior the title to the lazlcl thereby coureyed shdl vest in tho grantee therein named. In the last annual report of this office attenti011 was invited to the nnwisdom of this legislation and the misfortune to the Indiaus which would naturally result from it. By reason of this legislation, there have been approved by the Department up to July 25,1896,157 assignments of land from these Indians, aggregating an area of 19,479.5& acres of land, at a valuation of $118,304.87, comprising 14,082.74 acres in Pottawatomie Douuty, valuation $84,269.07, or an average of $5.98 per acre, and 6,396.80 acres in Cleveland County, valuatio~i $34,035.80, or an average of $6.31 per acre. A large percentage of this land was originally purchased from the Indians at a consideration inuch below its real value, and not always for cash or' current money of the United States, as required by the rulb and regnlations adopted by theDepartment to be observed iuthe execution of such conveyances. No deed, however, ha,s been approved where satisfactory evidence has not been presented &owing a snbse qnent cash payment to the amount of the full valuc of the laud, as. ~ppraised by one of the special Indian agents or by an inspector of the Department. There seems to be some abatement in these conveyances, the Indiaus as well as the pnrcliasers having ascertained that the Department must be fully satisfied of the bonafides of the transaction, and of the adequacy and payment of the consideration money. The majority of the con-veyances now presented are made by Indians resident in Kansas or |