OCR Text |
Show 84 REPOBT OF COMMISSIONEB OF INDIAN AFFAIBS. to tbe Jurisdiction of the United States, without just cause or proyocation on the part of the owner or agent in charge, and not returned or paid for; and the alienage of the claimant, provided he is or may hereafter become a citizen, or tbe alienage of his heirs, provided they are or may hereafter become citizens of the United States, or the want of amity of the defendant Indians, smll not be s defense to eaid claim. Section 5 of these bills is: That all cases heretofore Bled under said Act of March third, eighteen hun-dred and ninety-one, which are embraced within the terms of this Act, hereto-fore dismissed by said court, may be reinstated and readjudicated under the mid Act as hereby smended. The bills have other objectionable features, and if enacted into law would permit the presentation of many claims that were not filed in the Court of Claims within the time required by the act of March 3, 1891, and also claims for depredations committed prior to July 1, 1865, which were barred by that act. To strike out the "%mi@ clause " which has been in every depredation claim act since 1796, and is the settled law of the country, would result in the reinstatement and readjudication of all those claims which the court has disallowed because the Indians alleged to have committed the injuries were not in amity with the United States. It would take from five to ten years, and probably cost $10,000,000, to readjndicate the claims which would be reinstated should the provisions of these bills become law. The office has always been strongly opposed to any such legislation. LENHI RESERVATION. Under the act of June 21,1906 (34 Stat. L., 325-335), the o5ce has completed its work preliminary to the opening to settlement and entry of the lands on the Lemhi Reservation in Idaho. The Commissioner of the General Land Office has been furnished with a schedule of the improved lands to be abandoned and a de-scription of the improvements thereon, and with the names of the Indian occupants and the purchasers of the respective improvements. I am informally advised by the General Land Office that the sur-veys of this reservation have been made in the field; and although the plats of survey have not yet been transmitted by the surveyor general of Idaho, yet by the spring of 1909 the surveys will have been accepted and the plats made ready, so that the lands may be opened to entry. LANDS OF SAC AND FOX IN IOWA. In my last annual report I alluded to the uncertainties existing as to the legal status of the Sac and Fox in Iowa and what had been . done under the legislation of 1896 about a formal transfer of the legal title and trusteeship of their lands held by the governor of Iowa and the United States Indian agent. |