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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])
Indian legislation passed during the second and third sessions of the Fifty-eighth Congress, pp. 441-471
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Page 441
INDIAN LEGISLATION PASSED DURING THE SECOND AND THIRD SESSIONS OF THE FIFTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.(' CHAP. 22. An Act To authorize the sale and disposition of surplus or unallotted lands of the Yakima Indian Reservation, in the State of Washington. [Vol. 33, p. 595.] Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed, as hereinafter provided, to sell or dispose of unallotted lands embraced in the Yakima Indian Reservation proper, in the State of Washington, set aside and established by treaty with the Yakima Nation of Indians, dated June eighth, eighteen hundred and fifty- five: Provided, That the claim of said Indians to the tract of land adjoining their present reservation on the west, excluded by erroneous boundary survey and containing approxi- mately two hundred and ninety-three thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven acres, accord- ing to the findings, after examination, of Mr. E. C. Barnard, topographer of the Geological Survey, approved by the Secretary of the Interior April seventh, nineteen hundred, is hereby recognized, and the said tract shall be regarded as a part of the Yakima Indian Res- ervation for the purposes of this Act: Provided further, That where valid rights have been acquired prior to March fifth, nineteen hundred and four, to lands within said tract by bona fide settlers or purchasers under the public-land laws, such rights shall not be abridged, and any claim of said Indians to these lands is hereby declared to be fully compensated for by the expenditure of money heretofore made for their benefit and in the construction of irrigation works on the Yakima Indian Reservation. SEC. 2. That allotments of land shall be made, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, to any Indians entitled thereto, including children now living born since the com- pletion of the existing allotments who have not heretofore received such allotments. The Secretary of the Interior is also authorized to reserve such lands as he may deem necessary or desirable in connection with the construction of contemplated irrigation systems, or lands crossed by existing irrigation ditches; also lands necessary for agency, school, and religious purposes; also such tract or tracts of grazing and timber lands as may be deemed expedient for the use and benefit of the Indians of said reservation in common: Provided, That such reserved lands, or any portion thereof, may be classified, appraised, and disposed of from time to time under the terms and provisions of this Act. SEC. 3. That the residue of the lands of said reservation-that is, the lands not allotted and not reserved-shall be classified under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior as irrigable lands, grazing lands, timber lands, mineral lands, or arid lands, and shall be appraised under their appropriate classes by legal subdivisions, with the exception of the mineral lands, which need not be appraised, and the timber on the lands classified as timber lands shall be appraised separately from the land. The basis for the appraisal of the timber shall be the amount of standing merchantable timber thereon, which shall be ascertained and-reported. Upon completion of the classification and appraisements the irrigable, grazing, and arid lands, and the timbered lands upon the completion of the classification, appraisement, and the sale and removal of the timber therefrom, shall be disposed of under the general provi- sions of the homestead laws of the United States, and shall be opened to settlement and entry at not less than their appraised value by proclamation of the President, which procla- mation shall prescribe the manner in which these lands shall be settied upon, occupied, and entered by persons entitled to make entry thereof, and no person shall be permitted to set- tle upon, occupy, or enter any of said lands, except as prescribed in such proclamation, until after the expiration of sixty days from the time when the same are opened to settlement and entry: Provided, That the rights of honorably discharged Union soldiers and sailors of the late civil and Spanish wars and the Philippine insurrection, as defined and described in sections a This does not include items of appropriations for the Indian service unless they involve new legislation. 441
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