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anything to do with the affairs of the Red Lake band, both because of the condition of the title and the rights and the interest that the Red Lakes have in their properties, and because of the embarrassing position that it must put all of the gentlemen in to be legislating about property where the owners of the same, first, don't want them to have anything to do with it, and second, where their interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the managers of the general council. I can not conceive why they should not be ready-and I suppose perhaps they are now ready when we come to consider the text of this bill-to say: "Yes, take the Red Lake Indians out to themselves and let us have a chance then to deal with the problems. which is relieved of its worst complexity.'

Now, Mr. Chairman, when we have time to get down to the consideration of the law, when we come to deal with these persons involved in the proposed legislation one by one, I am sure that a great deal of light can be thrown upon the difficulties that are in the mind of members of the committee. I am hearing that Mr. Kelly's inquiries with reference to the Red Lake situation can be met perhaps more directly and much more fully than they have been up to

present time, and it will be a proper time to deal with that subject. If I venture upon it now it would take hours. It would lead off into side paths, side ways that it would take so long to discuss. I promise the committee that if we do have a hearing on this bill that the question of the proper interpretation of the act of 1889, so far as the Red Lake Indians are concerned, can be cleared up.

Mr. KELLY. I might just ask there in a word as a trained lawyer with a legal view of all these matters, are you convinced that the act of 1889 clearly gave special advantages to the Red Lakes aside from the other Chippewas?

Mr. HENDERSON. Thoroughly, Mr. Kelly. I am not only convinced by the qualifications which I do not wholly deserve, but convinced by 20 years of careful attention to the subject and association with and working for these people and of personal, intimate knowledge of them and with them on their reservations and here in Washington; and I simply desire to pass this subject with this suggestion, that an agreement with an Indian or with an Indian tribe, like an agreement with anybody else, is the mutual understanding between the parties and the rules of interpretation will apply equally to the agreement of 1889 with other agreements, and I pass the subject, as I say, with contenting myself with directly your attention to this fact: That we have the interpretation of the Red Lake Indians placed upon the agreement at the time if was made-I will only take a minute, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. You have only a minute left.

Mr. HENDERSON. We have the interpretation of the agreement passed upon by the other party to the contract, which was the commission; they have shown conclusively what interpretation they placed upon the agreement; we have the interpretation placed upon the agreement by the department, by the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it was and who has all the facilities for determining that; and finally, gentlemen, and in conclusion, thanking you for your kindness, we have the interpretation of you gentlemen yourselves, the interpretation that Congress placed upon that agreement when they made the agreement of 1902 and the agreement of 1903 and passed the act of 1904.

(The written brief submitted by Mr. Henderson follows:)

BRIEF OF RED LAKE BAND OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS ON H. R. 12972 AND H. R. 12973, SIXTY-SIXTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION.

The hearings before this committee on the legislation proposed in the bills above indicated have covered the general bill H. R. 12973 and the jurisdictional bill H. R.

12972.

THE GENERAL BILL.

The legislation embodied in this bill proposes to “wind up the affairs of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota,' "in doing which two main purposes are sought, namely, (a) the further and final allotment of lands, immediately, among the unallotted Chippewas of Minnesota entitled to allotment, and (b) the per capita distribution, as speedily as possible, of all their tribal property held in trust by the Government, including surplus lands and the funds, principal and interest, arising, or to arise, under the act of January 14, 1889.

The specific purposes of the proposed legislation, summarized, are: To enroll and allot the members of the Red Lake Band; to add to the existing allotment rolls of the Chippewas of Minnesota and then to allot 160 acres, out of any reserved or undisposed of ceded lands, to each person so added to the roll; to have such allotments remain nontaxable for a given period; within six months after completion of the rolls to cause all individual funds standing to the credit of such enrolled persons to be paid to them, if competent, and, if incompetent, paid to parents or guardians in a manner therein set forth; automatically to pass fee simple title to allotments to competent enrollees; to adjudge certain persons competent and to possess such persons of all property held in trust for them by the United States; to issue patents in fee to all such persons; to require all conveyances of such allotted lands hereafter to be acknowledged before a United States commissioner or judge of a court of record; upon completion of all the rolls provided for in the bill, to distribute, at once, out of the trust funds arising under the act of January 14, 1889, the sum of $300 to every person entitled to share in the distribution of that fund; to repeat such distribution as often as the trust fund will admit of a per capita payment of $300, the payments to the competent ones being made direct, in cash, and for the incompetent ones the funds being transferred on the books of the Treasury of the United States to a special fund, but segregated and credited to them individually on the books of the Indian Office; to have all unpaid trust funds, whether segregated or not, continue, until paid, to draw interest at the rate of 5 per cent per annum, payments to be made to the legal guardians in cases where the parents or minors have died; in certain cases to divide the whole amount due into 10 payments, and in other cases into 20 payments, with the right reserved to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to withhold payment from any parent or guardian who has misused or squandered the funds of the minors (sec. 1).

To dispose of all merchantable timber on any lands ceded under the act of January 14, 1889, and subsequently included in forest or other reserve, contrary to the intent of the act, paying to any allottee the value of the timber cut from his allotment; to have all lands heretofore ceded under the said act, and not disposed of according to its terms, together with any lands that may be recovered from the State of Minnesota, appraised at their true value, with the timber thereon, and upon completion of allotments, as authorized in the bill, sell such land and timber at public auction to the highest bidder, upon terms provided in the bill, and deposit the funds derived from such sale in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota in their principal fund (sec. 2).

To convey to the State of Minnesota, for public-school purposes (upon terms to be fixed by the Secretary), all school buildings and lands on which the same are situated, belonging to the Chippewas of Minnesota; to use so much of the one-fourth of the annual interest accruing on the principal funds intended for educational purposes as is necessary to provide proper school facilities for children of Indian parents, who reside on their allotments; to limit the amount so applied for any child to $175 a year; to withdraw from the principal of the trust funds money for educational purposes, if the interest be not sufficient therefor, but not to exceed $75,000 in one year; to make a detail report annually to Congress of the money so used for school purposes (sec. 3). To establish town sites on the Red Lake and White Earth Reservations, and upon any land ceded under the act of January 14, 1889, that has not been otherwise disposed of; to have the same surveyed and platted; to appoint, at once, three members of a town site board; and to sell and have patents issued for town lots in the manner prescribed in the bill, reserving certain rights to any owners of improvement thereon, the proceeds to be placed to the credit of the Chippewas in Minnesota fund (sec. 4).

To make resurveys or new and additional surveys of Chippewa Indian lands in Minnesota, for the purpose of correcting errors in previous surveys, or establishing boundaries anew, and to transmit reports of such surveyors to the Court of Claims (sec. 6).

To provide necessary rules and regulations in strict conformity with the provisions of the bill, for carrying it into effect (sec. 8).

To withdraw and use the sum of $50,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, from the principal fund of the Chippewa Indians in Minnesota, to defray the adminis trative expenses of carrying out the provisions of the bill.

To aid in carrying the bill into effect, a commission is proposed, to perform the following duties:

1. To add to the existing allotment rolls of all the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota. 2. To prepare the "Roll of incompetent allotted Minnesota Chippewa Indians," to include: (a) All minors, (b) all incompetent full-blood adults; and (c) all other incompetent adults of more than one-half Indian blood, allotted on the White Earth Reservation.

3. To prepare two other rolls to include the persons living on the date that the bill is enacted into law, who are unallotted, but entitled to share in the tribal funds arising under section 7 of the act of January 14, 1889, as follows:

First roll: Competents, embracing: (a) All adults of one-half or less Indian blood; (b) all others (who may be) found competent to handle their shares of such funds. Second roll: Incompetents, embracing: (a) All minors; (b) adults of more than onehalf Indian blood, incompetent to handle their shares of the fund.

The bill confers upon the "General Council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota," the following authority:

1. To appoint one of the members of the commission above mentioned.

2. To appoint one-third of the number of appraisers required to determine and fix the value of the lands and timber to be sold under the terms of the bill.

3. To appoint one of the three members of the board to establish town sites on the several Chippewa Reservations in the State.

4. To appoint one of the two surveyors provided for in the bill, to resurvey lands ceded by the Chippewas of Minnesota to the United States, to correct alleged mistakes made in the original surveys.

5. To expend for its own use and purposes an appropriation of $15,000 a year for the period of five years out of the Chippewa in Minnesota trust fund.

DUTIES OF THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR UNDER THE BILL.

Except that the President of the United States is to appoint one member of the commission, and is to issue patents for lots in any town sites established, the bill provides that the Secretary of the Interior shall perform the other functions required by its terms and not assigned to the commission or the "general council."

DIFFERENCE OF VIEWS DEVELOPED AT THE HEARINGS.

In the course of the hearing it is developed that the proponents of the legislation under consideration are officers of the so-called General Council of the Minnesota Chippewas; and that a large part of the Chippewa Indians of the State on the several reservations are strongly opposed, both to the legislation and to the authority assumed by the said council.

The Indian Bureau likewise has shown that it is firmly set in opposition to much that the proponents of the bills seek to accomplish by the legislation; and it appears that an agreement between the bureau and the proponents, on some questions at least, is unlikely.

VIEWS OF THE RED LAKE BAND.

The Red Lake Band ask that any legislation adopted at this time be so worded as to exclude expressly the members of this band from enrollment by the proposed commission for any purpose, and they further ask that section 7, as found on page 28 of the "committee print" of the bill, be retained as a part of any legislation enacted.

In so far as the separate rights and interests of the Red Lake Band are involved, the proposed legislation is deemed impossible; and as to the features purporting to apply alike to all the bands, the Red Lake Indians say that the scheme thus presented for “winding up the affairs of the Minnesota Chippewas" is premature, illogical, incomplete, and impracticable.

The Red Lake Band believe that until numerous legal questions involved in the act of January 14, 1889, and in the administration of the property of the Minnesota

Chippewas thereunder, have been settled, the legislation proposed would retard, rather than hasten, a final settlement of the affairs of the Minnesota Chippewas.

The Red Lake Band therefore ask that a broad and liberal jurisdictional bill, fair alike to all the respective bands, as well as to the interests of the Chippewas of Minnesota as a whole, be favorably reported by the committee, in order that the issues possible thereunder may be submitted to the Court of Claims, and final decisions had on the same, before further attempts are made "to wind up the affairs of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota.'

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At the outset, it is observed that the proponents of the bill base their argument in its favor mainly upon the bare text of the act of January 14, 1889, which they insist upon treating as an exact agreement, notwithstanding the evident fact that, so far as the Red Lake Band, at least, is concerned, the act, by its express terms, rendered the suggestion of any agreement on the part of that band, in the true sense, an absurdity, affording, as it did, no discretion whatever to the band in the matter of accepting or rejecting terms. It was a travesty.

As a matter of fact, the Red Lake Band never did accept the terms of the act, as is abundantly shown by the minutes of the proceedings of the councils held with the Chippewa Commission, from June 28, 1889, to July 6, 1889; and as is further shown by the attitude of the successors to that commission, by the attitude of the other bands of Minnesota Chippewa Indians and by the attitude of the Interior Department and of Congress from 1889 down to the present time.

The Red Lake Band offer no objection to completion of allotment rolls of the several bands of Chippewas, and, at the proper time, will favor not only completion but correction of all Minnesota Chippewa allotment rolls. And thereafter, when the legal question involved as to what lands are available for allotment have been adjudicated, they will offer no objection to final allotment in accordance therewith.

Likewise, no objection will then be offered by the Red Lake Band to the segregation of individual funds and the payment thereof to the Indian or his parent or guardian; nor to the preparation of rolls that will distinguish the competent from the incompetent members of the several bands; nor to the per capita payments and distribution of all tribal funds that can legally be paid and distributed; nor to the issuance of fee simple patents to competent Indians requesting the same; nor to enforcing payment of interest authorized by law on all funds, tribal or individual; nor to maintaining at all times an efficient Indian school system on the several reservations in Minnesota, using therefor as large a part of the tribal funds as is legally available, and distributing the benefits as equitably as possible among the Minnesota Chippewas generally; nor to appropriate provision for the sale of remaining unallotted lands and merchantable timber thereon ceded to the United States under the act of January 14, 1889; nor to the recovery, for the benefit of the Chippewas of Minnesota, of the swamp lands within their reservations, or the value thereof, the same to be converted into their trust fund. But in considering this legislation, the following points deserve careful consideration: Making rolls: No allotment or other roll of any of the bands can be safely and satisfactorily made without the aid of the council of that band. In the nature of things, no safeguard against mistake in the enrollment of Indians is so great as the approval of the council of the band being enrolled. Such a roll, made under the direction of the council, and approved by the Secretary of the Interior, will leave little necessity for further revision, except such as may have to be made in individual cases by a court of competent jurisdiction, in passing upon legal questions that arise, such questions as an enrolling commission could not be expected to settle finally.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRINCIPAL OF THE TRUST FUND.

The Red Lake Indians seek to avoid the danger of having their interest in this fund complicated by further legislation at this time providing for distribution; but would welcome legislation segregating their proportionate share thereof, to the end that the same might be preserved for and ultimately enjoyed by the members of the band, as contemplated by the actual agreement of 1889.

"THE GENERAL COUNCIL.

With reference to the "general council," which occupies a prominent place in the proposed scheme of legislation, it is evident to all that, as at present constituted and operated, the institution falls far short of meeting the approval of the Chippewa Indians of the State. Some reference to true conditions with regard to the elements composing the whole body of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota may serve to explain. On January 14, 1889, when the Nelson Act was passed, the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota comprised four main divisions, namely, the Lake Superior Chippewas, the Mississippi Chippewas, the Pillager Bands, and the Red Lake Band.

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The Lake Superior Bands occupied three reservations in the northeastern part of the State, namely, Fond du Lac, Grand Portage, and Boise Fort or Nett Lake. The Pillager Bands occupied Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Lake Winnibigoshish Reservations, besides which the Otter Tail Band of Pillagers occupied a part of the White Earth Reservation.

The Mississippi bands, originally including the Gull Lake, Mille Lac, Sandy Lake, Rabbit Lake, Rice Lake, and Pokagomin Lake Bands, for the most part were living on the White Earth Reservation. The Mille Lac Band, however, had remained at their old reservation on the shores of Mille Lac Lake, and the Pokagomin Lake Indians had remained at White Oak Point, near Leech Lake, and were know as the White Oak Point Band.

The Red Lake Band occupied its present reservation near the shores of Red Lake in the northwestern portion of the State.

It is to be observed that the commissioners in negotiating agreements under the act of January 14, 1889, dealt separately with these bands, as will appear from their report embodied in House Executive Document 247, Fifty-first Congress, first session. It there appears that separate councils were held with, and separate cessions and relinquishments obtained from, the Red Lake Band; the Pembina Band, residing on the White Earth Reservation; the Pillager Bands of Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Lake Winnibigoshish Reservation; the Otter Tail Pillager Band, residing on the White Earth Reservation; the Grand Portage Band; the Fond du Lac Band; the Boise Fort and Deer Creek Indians, residing on the Nett Lake Reservation; the Mille Lac Band; the White Oak Point Band (corresponding to the Pokagomin Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewas); and the four remaining Mississippi Bands, namely, Gull Lake, Sandy Lake, Rice Lake, and Rabbit Lake Bands, residing on the White Earth Reservation.

These several bands all had their separate interests and identity, with the exception of the four Mississippi Bands, above named, the Gull Lake, Sandy Lake, Rabbit Lake, and Rice Lake Bands, living together and acting in one council on the White Earth Reservation.

This will sufficiently explain, perhaps, what some of the witnesses at the hearings, representing the full-blood element, for lack of time failed to convey to the committee with reference to the majority representation among the Minnesota Chippewas in the organization of a general council of the Chippewas of the State, constituted as the present general council is.

The Red Lake Band, in 1913, participated, it is true, in the organization of a general council, and for several years was represented therein by delegates; but, finding that the ogranization was not truly representative of the Minnesota Chippewas as a whole, and moreover that the council was assuming the right to extend its jurisdiction outside of the common business interests of the Chippewas of Minnesota, and was undertaking to invade the jurisdiction of the councils of the separate bands, the Red Lake band, in 1918, withdrew from the general council, has not since that time been represented therein, and denies the right of the general council, so called, to speak or act for them in any respect.

SCHOOLS.

With reference to provisions contained in the bill relating to schools, school properties and the use of trust funds for educational purposes, the Red Lake band urges that no measures be adopted that will in any wise abridge or interfere with the present school facilities and advantages afforded the Red Lake Band. They believe that no part of the trust funds, paid to or used for the benefit of the band, has yielded as valuable returns as the money expended for educational purposes on the Red Lake Resetvation.

TOWN SITES.

The Red Lake Band object to any legislation authorizing the location and establishment of town sites within the Red Lake Reservation until after such time as the lands shall have been allotted. There is at present one town site established under a special act of Congress, which is the terminus of the railroad leading into the reservation, and the Indians believe that the establishment of further town sites would be detrimental to their interest.

SURVEYS.

The Red Lake Band protest against the expenditure of the trust funds of the Chippewas of Minnesota for resurvey of the Chippewa lands. They believe that if occasion should arise for additional surveys or re-surveys of reservation lines, it will only be after suits have been instituted under legislation yet to be enacted, and that when such necessity arises therefor, it will be ample time to incur the heavy expenses incident to making new surveys.

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