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Show 56 COMMISSIONER INDIAN AFFAIRS. made by the Crown of England. Antedating the Federal Constitu-tion the two colonies (Massachusetts and New York) by convention settled the points in dispute. By this agreement New York ceded to Massachusetts the right of preemption of the soil from the native Indians, and all other right, title, and property in and to tliese lands, the right of government, sovereignty, and jurisdiction being excepted. In March, 1791, Massachusetts sold its right and title to these lands to Robert Morris, and by several mesne conveyances the Ogden Land Co. acquired a claim of title to all the lands embraced in the Catta-raugus and Allegany Reservations and a part of those in the Tusca-rora Reserve. The locus of the fee in and to these lands is an inter-esting question. The Ogden Land Co. claims a fee through the sale to Robert Morris by the Massachusett;~C olony. The Indians claim the fee, advancing the argument that the only thing Massachusetts had the power to sell was the preemption right of first purchase whenever the Indians get ready to part with it. New York has always claimed jurisdiction on the ground that this was retained in the convention with Massachusetts in the eighteenth century. The Seneca Nation or Tribe was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1845 (sec. 1, chap. 150), and individual members of the tribe hold deeds to certain tracts within their reservation, which deeds have been placed of record in the proper county. Sales of individual tracts to white persons, however, is prohibited. These facts have tended to further complicate the situation. In 1904 a bill was pending (H. R. 7262, 58th Cong.) desimed to allot in severalty the lands claimed by these Indians, and the question was quite extensively agitated at that time. The legislation failed of enactment, however, and I am now giving the question careful con-sideration with a view of submitting an appropriate draft of legisla-tion to the Congress at an early date providing for a division of the tribal lands and the placing of these Indians on a basis of citizenship equal to other residents of the S t a t e a place which they should have occupied long ago. FORT SILL APACHE PRISONERS OF WAR. The remnant of Geronimo's band of Apaches, with the children born to the members since their capture 20 years ago, were held in a nominal status as prisoners of war, and of late years have been lo-cated at Fort Sill, Okla. The last of this band was released from the jurisdiction of the War Department in March, 1914. All adult Indians among those who elected to remain in Oklahoma, instead of going to the Mescxlero Reservation in New Mexico, as 187 members of the band elected to do during the fiscal year 1913, have been allotted suitable tracts of land which were purchased for them. |