OCR Text |
Show It was construed as conferring authority upon the Secretary of the Interior to assume such charge of the several schools and orphan asy-lums as would insure better management and more economical admin-istration of these institutions. An agreement with the Seminole, approved July 1, 1899, contained this provision: Five hundred thousand dollars of the funds belonging to the Seminoles, now held by the United States, shall be set apart as a permanent school fund for theeducation of children of the members of the said tribe, and shall be held by the United States at 5 per cent intereet, or invested so as to produce such amount of interest, which shall he, after extinguishment of tribal government, applied by the Secretary of the Interior to the support of Mekasuky and Emahaka academies and the district school of the Seminole people, * * * By its terns this provision did not seem to contemplate present con-trol by the Department of the schools. The agreement with the Choctaw and Chickmaw nations, embodied in the Curtis law m section 29 thereof, contained these provisions: I t is a-gr eed that all the coal and asphalt witbin the limits of the Choctaw and Chickma. rlaticr~rs~t )aII n.main artd Ire rhc. vunlrnun pnrprny oi the luernt~rr*o f the Cl ta~~ulawn d ('hicknsnw tribe- (frcnlmrrt t,xceptd), po tllat o*rha nd every ~o,emk.r shall have vean equal and undivided interest in the whole. * * The revenues from cGal and asphalt, or so much as shall be neceseary, shall be used for the education of the children of Indian blood of the members of said tribes. * * * All coal and asphalt mines in the two nations, whether now developed or hereafter ta he developed, shall be operated and the royalties therefmm paid into the Treas-ury of the United States, and shall be drawn therefrom under such rnles and regul* tions as shall be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior. This section conferred ample authority upon the Department to assume control of the sohools in the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations wherever they should be supported out of the coal and asphalt royal-ti-. The governor of the Choctaw Nation early expressed his desire that the Secretary should assume control of their schools, and the legis-lature of the nation, carrying out these wishes, made no appropriations for their support. Therefore immediate direction was undertaken through proper Federal machinery. The Chickasaw Nation, however, made appropriations and attempted to conduct their own schools out of their own funds, which has resulted in lamentable financial embarrassment. The national authorities of the Creek and Cherokee nations continued to make their own appropriations for the schools of the respective nations, and the Department has only assumed supel-visory control of them. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899, regulations concerning education in the Indian Territory were prepared, approved by the Department, and promulgated for the conduct of these schools. They provided for an executive head, known as the "superintendent of schools in Indian Territory," to which John D. Benedict, of Illinois, |