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Show COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 25 AS TO INDIAN COMPETENCY. The general course of treaties, agreements, and legislation has been in line with the purpose of reserving definite areas of land as tribal estates and of allotting therefrom as rapidly as possible free-holds in severalty, with the aim of inducing by this transfer of tri-bal to individual holdings a .departure from old communal traits and customs to self-dependent conditions and to a democratic con-ception of the civilization with wbich the Indian must be assiml- Iated if he is to survive. In the process of allotting lands to the Indians, and the sale of such surplus as they do not need, many reservations have acquired a mixed population of both Indians and whites which has hastened local self-government, public schools, and other social, civic, and industrial benefits to the backward race. Various reservations indicate this evolution, and somg are now practically merged with white settlements and,shqw but little raclal divergence in the prevailing customs and activities. There are, it is true, a few exceptions to this transforming process, as in some semiarid portions of the Southwest where tribal relations must largely continue until existing, physical conditions have been changed. The Navajo country is the most opnspicuous of these exceptions and for some time to come will call'for exceptional cqn-sideratiou, particularly as regards education, health, and such ln-dustrial advancement as the physical character of ,the country wlll permit. But the general out-wofk of the reservation system, with certain curable defects, is in the rlght direction. As is well known, the law provldes for issuing to the Indian a trust patent upon the land allotted to hi, which exempts it from taxation and restricts him from its sale or encumbrance until he is declared competent to manage his business affairs, when he may, upon application, receive a patent in fee and be free to handle or dls-pose of his land the same as any white citizen. . I t is doubtful if a satisfactory method has been fquud $or deter-mining the competency upon which to base a terminatlou of the trust title. Applications for patents in fee have too often been adroitly sup-ported by influences which sought to hasten the taxable status of the property or to accomplish a purchase at much less than its fair value, or from some other motive forei-gn to the Indian's ability to -p rotect his roperty rights. dtwithstanding the sincere efforts of officials and competency com-missions to reach a safe conclusion as to tl?e ability of a? Indian to manage prudently his business and landed interests, expe~euce.shows that more than two-thirds of the Indians who have recelved patents in fee have been unable or unwilling to cope with the business acumen coupled with the selfishness and greed of the more competent whites, and in many instances have lost e v q acre they had.. It is also true that many of the applications receiqed f o p~at ents in fee are from those least competent to manage their affairg while the really com-petent Indians are in large wmbers still holding their lands in trust. It is evident to the careful observer that degree of blood should not be a deciding factor to establish competency, as there are numerous instances of full-bloods who are clearly demqustrating their indus-trial ability by the actual use made of thew land and who are shrewGly content with a restrictive title thereto that exempts them |
