OCR Text |
Show I REPORT OF THE COMMISSIORER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 75 Secretary of the Interior. All conveyances of these lands are to be subject to the approval of the Secretary, and when so approved will convey full title to the purchaser, the same as if a final patent without restriction on alienation had been issued to the allottee. Steps have been taken to cause patents to be issued. CTOW.-All the Crows have selected their lands, and the field work on their reservation is finished, except the preparation of the family record showing the relationships of each allottee. This will require a few weeks more ; otherwise the allotment work would have been closed during the year, as forecast in my last annual report. The family record, which the Office has been trying to compile in several tribes during recent years, has become absolutely necessary in view of tho act of May 8, 1906, conferring certain probate powers upon the Sec-retary of the Interior. It will of course make all allotment work slower and more laborious, but I believe the delays will be more than paid for by the result.' The total number of Crow allotments exceeds 2,000. Of the allottees, 81 elected to retain their homes on the ceded part of the reservation, while 33 of those who were living on the ceded lands preferred to have their improvements sold and remove to the diminished reserve. The ceded lands were opened to settle-ment by the President's proclamation of M$y 4,1906. Flathead.-By the act of April 23, 1904 (33 Stat. L., 302), the Flathead Reservation is to be disposed of after allotments are made to the Indians entitled. The surveys are not yet finished, but on March 8, 1906, the Secretary designated John K. Rankin to make the illotments. On April 4, when Mr. Rankin was directed to begin work, the O5ce could provide him with only 16 plats of survey, and these did not embrace any very large area of land fit for allotment. Since then 41 additional township plats have been sent to him, but several others have not yet been received from the General Land Office. Mr. Rankin has perfected his organization and has a large force pushing the work with energy. It is believed that the Flathead allotments will be completed at an early date, as the members of the tribes en-titled on that reservation are generally intelligent and progressive, having fixt abodes and many improvements; but in any event the work will be done fairly and thoroly. Jicari1la.-The Jicarilla Reservation in New Mexico is an example of premature allotment, and as a result the problempresented is very serious. In this case the allotment was not induced by pressure from white land seekers, but by the urgency of the Indians themselves. Their eagerness for land in severalty, however, arose from no longing to become civilized citizens. Their chief thought, as was afterward discovered, was that the formal allotment of their lands would settle any q~estion as to their right to the reservation, concerning which some earlier experiences had given them much uneasiness. I |