OCR Text |
Show Indians of tho use thoroof. ..And this divor3ion of tho wator, it is allogod, has continued until tho present time, to the ir-rcparablo injury of the United States, for which thoro is no adoquato rcmody at law. Tho allegations of the answer, so far as. material to the present controversy, aro as follows: That the lands of the Fort Belknap reservation woro a part of a much larger area in tho Stato of Montana, which by an act of Congress, approved April 15, 1374, c. 96, 13 Stat. 28, was sot apart and reserved for tho occupation of the Gro3 Ventro, Piegan, Blood, Blackfoot and River Crow Indians, but that the right of tho Indians thoroin "was the bare right of tho use and occupation thoreof at tho will and sufferanco of tho Government of the Unitod States." Th-t the United States, for the purpose of opening for settlement a large portion of such area, enterod into an agreement with tho Indians composing said, tribos, by which tho Indians "ceded, sold, transferred and conveyed" to the Unitod States all of the lands embraced in said aroa, except Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, desoribe in tho bill. This agreement was ratified by an act of Congress of May 1, 1878, c. 213, 25 Stat. 113. and thereby tho lands to which the Indians' title was thus extinguished bo-came a part of the public domain of tho United States and sub-joot to dirposal undor tho v-.rioun land l-.-.vn, '*an-i it -.vac tho purpose and intontion of tho Govornmont that tho said land should bo thus thrown oi>on to settlement, to tho ond that tho samo might be settlod u on, inhabited, reclaimed and cultivated and communities of civilized persons be established thereon." |