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Show 54 REPORT OF THE COXMSSIONER OF INDIAN APFAlRS. An investigation by representatives of the department was made early in the present fiscal year, and as a result thoroughgoing meas-ures have been set on foot to get back the stolen lands as soon as possible. An employee of the office has been specially assigned to the preparation of the legal cases that will be necessary, and special United States attorneys have been assigned by the Department of Justice to recover the lands and value of the timber purchased from full-blood Indians, full-blood minors, and mixed-blood minors. This work is being pushed with all possible energy, although prog-ress is necessarily somewhat slow on account of the many legal di-cnlties in the way. THE APACHES AT FORT SILL. An effort was made at the last session of Congress to procure legis-lation for allotment of land to the Apaches on the Fort Sill Military Reservation. Two bills were introduced for this purpose-S. 6152 and H. R. 25297. Both bills failed of enactment, and an effort (H. J. Res. 196) to provide for the removal of this band of Indians to any Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona or New Mexico also failed of enactment. This band of Apaches was removed to the Fort Sill Military Res-ervation, Okla., in 1894 on account of their outrages upon the settlers in Arizona and New Mexico. They have been under military sur-veillance since that time. A number of them have become fairly successful farmers and stock raisers. On the whole, they have made considerable progress. They have all become attnched to their lands. It is the opinion of this office that such as wish should be permitted permanently to remain on and have allotted to them these lands upon which they now have their homes. PAYMENT TO OTTAWA AND CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF MICHIGAN. Payment to the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan is now under way. This payment is being made as the result of a decision of the United States Court of Claims of March 4, 1907, which awarded these Indians the sum of $62,496.40, with interest from March 9,1885, a total of $131,188.94. This claim of the Indians had its origin in article 4 of the treaty of March 28,1836 (7 Stat., 491), which provided, inter alia, that the Government for a period of twenty years thereafter should invest the sum of $1,000 in stock, to be held in the Treasury for the bendt of the tribe. By the treaty of July 31, 1885 (11 Stat., 621), the tribe seemed to release the United States from all liability under its prior treaty. |
