Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/14

12

On some reservations lands have already been allotted to heads of families, and on several others the allotment will soon take place. According to the promise given by the government the lands occupied by the Brulé (Spotted Tail) Sioux at Rosebud, and by the Ogalallas (Red Cloud) at Pine Ridge Agency, have been surveyed and regularly laid out in farm lots. The “Sioux land-book” will now be opened according to the provisions of the treaty of 1868, and in the course of a few months we may expect to see those populous branches of the Sioux family, which but a few years ago were counted among the most restless, hostile, and untamable Indians, but whose progress during the last eighteen months has been surprisingly rapid, settled as farmers upon their lands. The desire for allotment of lands in severalty is now expressed by Indians on a considerable number of reservations with great urgency. On my visit to various tribes I was asked by a great many of them that “papers” be given them as soon as possible to show that the land they cultivate is their own; and in several instances they intimated that they would not feel secure in its possession and could not cultivate it with any certainty of being permitted to enjoy the fruit of their labor, until such papers were granted.

To make their settlement permanent, to cultivate among the Indians the pride of individual ownership of property and the love of a fixed home, and thus to encourage a feeling of independence of their tribal relations, it is necessary that by law a title in fee to the land thus allotted should be conferred upon them, and considering the improvident habits in which a large majority of the present generation have grown up, and it being a matter of experience that in many cases in which Indians had been invested with the fee title some of them were induced to part with it without proper equivalent, and a larger portion of them were robbed of it by fraudulent practices bearing upon their ignorance and credulity by unscrupulous white persons, it is essential that the title in fee be made inalienable for a certain period of time, say twenty-five years, when the growing generation may be expected to be sufficiently instructed to take care of their property. To this end a bill was submitted to Congress for two sessions providing that a fee title to the lands allotted to Indians inalienable for twenty-five years be conferred upon them individually, but I regret to say that this bill has never been acted upon. I would earnestly recommend that this matter be again urged upon the attention of Congress at the impending session.

If the Indians are to be advanced in civilized habits it is essential that they be accustomed to the government of law, with the restraints it imposes and the protection it affords. To meet this necessity a bill was introduced at the last session of Congress providing, 1. That the President