OCR Text |
Show COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 23 of applications made by Indian wives, heretofore rejected, have been reinstated and approved. APPRAISEMENATN D REhPPRhISE3IENT OF SURPLUS RESEIIVATION z,A~ns.-During the year many applications for appraisement and reappraisement of surplus reservation areas sublect to homestead dis~osition. were made under authoritv of the act of June 6. 1912 (3f Stat., 125). EXTENSIOONF TRUST PERIOO,-T~pe~r iod of trust was extended by order of the President on allotments made to the Chippewa Indians of the Fond du Lac Reservation, Minn., to the Pala and Sycuan Mission Indians of California, tp the Rickapoo Indians in Kansas, and to the Indians of various tr~besre siding on the public domain, wherein the period of trust would otherwise expire durmg the qal-endar year 1921. An order was also obtained extendin the period of trust on land patented to the Agua caliente Band of Indians in California, which would otherwise have expired durmg the year 1921. THE OMAFLCAA SES.-BY a decree of the United, Statea Supreme Court April 11,1921, in the Omaha allotment cases, the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, was a5rmed. The court held, in effect, that Hiram Chase, jr., Mary Gilpin, and other appli-cants, are not entitled to allotments of laud on the Omaha Reserva-tion under the prdvisions of the act of March 3,1893 (27 Stat., 630). This decision opens the way for carrying into eff&.the provisions of the act of May 11,1912 (37 Stat., 111). . .. ., . 'From the foregoing it will be seen that work in and largely completed during the year covered more than 7,000 allotments and a landed area of nearly a million acres. This kind of development is of special importance and should be extended as rapidly as consti-tuted facilities will permit. because there is nothing bbtter for the iiveragv Indian, ns there xre few thingi better for mnst inrn, than to own eno~~zlahn d to provide a irttled homestead that will yield, if need be, through the owner's labor the means of self-support. " REMOVAL OF RESTRICTIONS AND LAND SALES. During the year there were issued to competent Indians 1,692 pat-ents in fee, and sales were approved to purchasers of Indian lands . covering 1,268 tracts containing 135,893 acres, in which patents were to be issued. Certificates of competency were issued for 451 tracts containing 128.350 acres. and restrictions were removed from 42 tracts contain-ing 1,850 acres. In issuing patents in fee to Indians many were issued under the so-called "declaration of policy" to Indians of one-half or less Indian blood without any further proof of competency. This practice, however, has been disqontinued, and.in .all cases involving the issuance of patents to Indians, the practice is now to re uire a formal application and proof of competency. (X number of cases involving the prosecution of persons under ' section 5 of the act of June 25, 1910 (36 Stat. L., 855), and the re-covery of lands illegally conveyed, and also the abatement of taxes illegally levied and assessed against Indian trust lands, have been disposed of or settled. During the year the~eh as been a reat falling off in the number of land sales and in th3 acreage sol f , owing to the general depres- |