Viewing page 2 of 7

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[2 newspaper articles affixed to the sheet with an overlapping section at the bottom of the first]]

miles, or 4,713,000 acres, intact for their use and occupation. The act of Congress referred to provided for a survey of the reduced reservation and for the allotment in severalty to the Crow Indians of lands thereon.

The population of the Crows is estimated at about 3,500.  From the best information obtainable much of the land included within the present reservation is unfit for farming purposes, and it is believed that a further reduction could be made on the west and north sides thereof with advantage to the Government and without serious detriment to the Indians.  I have not sufficient data before me to suggest any definite boundaries; but if sufficient farming and grazing land can be obtained to satisfy the purposes of said act within a tract of country, in compact form, watered by the Big Horn and its tributaries below Fort Custer, I should be disposed to recommend the consolidation of the Indians thereon and the opening up of the residue to public settlement, [[article is overlapped and cut off by next article]]

LXIV REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS.

entertained, that some at least of the purchasers who offered extravagant prices for the lands were not acting in good faith, but hoped by running the prices up to destroy the effect of the sale, and eventually, by some means or other, to secure the lands at their own prices.  By this attempted sharp practice not only have bona-fide settlers been deprived of an opportunity to secure good lands at fair prices, but no little additional expense is likely to be incurred.

SETTLERS ON THE DUCK VALLEY RESERVATION.

On the 1st of April, 1880, a draft of a bill was prepared for the relief of certain settlers on the Duck Valley Reservation, in Nevada.  These parties had settled and made improvements upon certain lands embraced in this reservation prior to the date of the executive order setting them apart for Indian purposes.  Although the lands were unsurveyed, this office recognized the fact that an equitable claim would have existed for the value of the improvements, had the same been appraised, and urged the passage of the bill providing for their payment.  Congress failed to take favorable action upon the bill, and, these settlers proving a source of annoyance to the Indians, were, with the assistance of the military, forcibly removed from the reservations during the month of April last. 

[[text continues but has been cut off]]