OCR Text |
Show 1 100 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. Wishing to adopt all practicable measures to secure the exclusion of the sale of liquor from any town in the Indian country, the Office suggested to the Department that a clause be inserted in this and in a11 deeds conveying land to be used for town-site purposes, forever prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors on the premises conveyed. It also recommended that a like clause be inserted in all deeds con-veying inherited Indian lands. The Department cancurred, and on October 28 the officers in charge of agencies where inherited I~dian iands were offered for sale were instructed to require the insertion of the following proviso in a11 deeds conveying lands: Proulded, That no malt, spirituous, or vinous liquors shall be kept nor d/s-posed of on the premises conveyed, and that any violation of this condition, either by the grantee or any persen claiming rights under said party of the second part, shall render the conveyance void and cause the premises to revert to the party of the first part, his heirs and assigns. Protests from sundry persons living on or near the Yankton Reser-vation against the insertion of such a clause in deeds relating to lands on that re~ervationm ere presented to the Office thru members of the Congressional delegation from South Dakota. It was urged that the act of' August 15, 1894, ratifying an agreement with the Yankton Sioux (28 Stat. L., 314), prohibited the sale of intoxicants in a &an-tier which would effectually cut off such traffic without damaging the value of the land when sold to ordinary purchasers, whereas the inser-tion of the proposed clause in the deeds would frighten off intending purchasers by warning them that they might lose their land and all the money invested in it thru the misdoing of some one over whom they had no control, and this would prevent their making good bids for the property. Article 1'7 of the agreement mentioned reads as follows: NO intoxicating liquors nor other intoxicants shall ever be sold or given away upon any of the lands by this agreement ceded and sold to the United States, nor upon any other lands within or comprieing the reservatlons of the Y a ~ t o n Sioux or Dakota Indians as described in the treaty between the said Indians and the United States, dated April 19, 1858, and as xfterwards surveyed and s t off to the said Indians. The penalty for the violation of this provision ahall he such as Congress may prescribe in the act ratifying this agreement. The penalty clause of the ratification act reads as follows: That every person who shall sell or give away any intoxicating liquors or other intoxicants upon any of the lands by said agreement ceded, or upon any of the lands inbiuded in the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation as created by the treaty of April nineteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, shall be pun-ishable by imprisonment for not more than two years and by a h e of not: more than three hundred dollars. On December 7 the Office requested that an opinion on the matter be given by the law officers of the Department. On January 25 the Assistant Attorney-General reviewed the provisions of the agreement |