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United States. Office of Indian Affairs / Annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the year 1905, Part I
([1905])
Report of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, pp. 579-640
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Page 579
REPORT OF THE COMMISSION TO THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES. MUSKOGEE, IND. T., June 30, 1905. SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith the annual report of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1905. It was estimated in March, 1904, that the Commission would prac- tically finished the work of administering upon the estates of the Five Civilized Tribes by July 1, 1905. This estimate of course did not include such fractions of work as would necessarily be carried over by operation of law; it presumed no interruptions of the work by judi- cial proceedings, and it did not contemplate the adoption of new undertakings by Congress. In accordance with the foregoing, Congress gave the Commission the appropriation it asked for, required the work to be finished within the time named, and limited the existence of the Commission to July 1, 1905. Immediately after this legislation had been formulated Congress made extensive additions to the duties of the Commission. It did not, however, increase the appropriation or lengthen the time for the com- pletion of the work. It reopened the Delaware claims, which had been settled by the Supreme Court, and there devolved upon the Com- mission the adjudication of numerous individual rights under the new law. It also reopened the rolls of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole nations to provide allotments for newly born children. The Commission called attention to these features in its report of June 30, 1904, but it asked for nothing additional. It addressed itself to the task of devising new sources of economy and efficiency. The well-linown state of the public revenue, apart from other consid- erations, admonished such a course; and we have the satisfaction of showing, as is done in detail in this report, that we have been able to make good the expectation that was entertained. More has been done than we thought we should be able to do, and the remaining work is brought to a condition where, to finish the remnants which are left and to await the slow and uncertain determination of what is held up by judicial proceedings, the service of one man, with a reduced and diminishing corps of clerks, alone is necessary. Congress authorized the beginning of the allotment of th~e lands of these tribes to the individual citizens of the tribes, in 1898. when the Curtis bill was passed. That was the beginning not only of the allotment of the land, or rather the preparatory work therefor, but also of the effacement of the tribal governments. The primary cause Of this step was the incapacity of the tribes for self-government. 579
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