plowed, fenced, and cultivated about acres of said land, and has made the following improvements thereon, to wit: Sworn to and subscribed before me, this day of and whose names are We certify that subscribed to the foregoing affidavit, are persons of respectability. Register. NOTE. It is not indispensable that the foregoing affidavits should be made before the land officers. When that cannot be conveniently done, they may be made before any officer authorized to administer oaths, and in that case his official character must be certified under seal. [Then follow thirty-five pages of appraisements of the trust lands, with those awarded to bona-fide settlers indicated thereon. This circular can be obtained of the Topeka Land-Office or the General Land-Office.—ED.] No. 568. CIRCULAR. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, REGISTER AND RECEIVER, Topeka, Kansas. GENTLEMEN:-Referring to my letter to you of 15th August last, covering instructions for your guidance in the sale of the "Kansas Indian Lands," I have now to say, that on further examination of the act approved June 23, 1874, having in view the purpose of Congress to secure at as early a day as possible the sale of all the lands embraced by said act at their appraised value, I am of the opinion that the privilege of payment by installments, as specifically provided for in the body of the second section of said act of June 23, 1874, in the case of actual settlers, may properly be extended to the case of persons applying to purchase under the provisions of the last proviso of the said second section. The sixth paragraph of my said letter of instructions is therefore rescinded, and in lieu thereof the following rule is prescribed for your guidance: VI. By the last proviso of the second section of said act, the parties referred to as special beneficiaries must avail themselves thereof on or before the 23d day of June, 1875. After that date, any of said lands then remaining undisposed of may be sold, in amounts not exceeding 160 acres to any one person, at the appraised value as given in lists Nos. 1 and 2; payment to be made as in ordinary cash entries, or at the option of the purchaser, in four installments. In case of payment by installments being preferred, the conditions as to time and amount of payments, the execution of notes for deferred payments, security against waste, forfeiture for non-compliance, and the form of receipts, certificates, and abstracts to be used, will conform to the instructions found in the fourth paragraph of my said letter of 15 August. In case of any cash sales, you will proceed as in allowing ordinary cash entries; but you will note in your books, on the papers issued for the entries, and on your monthly abstracts returned to this Office, that they are "Kansas Trust and Diminished Reserve Lands," sold under the act of June 23, 1874. Very respectfully, S. S. BURDETT, Commissioner. V. BITTERROOS VALLEY, MONTANA, INDIAN LANDS. No. 569. INSTRUCTIONS. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAnd-Office, Washington, D. C., March 26, 1874. GENTLEMEN:-I transmit herewith copy of "An act to amend the act entitled 'An act to provide for the removal of the Flathead and other Indians from the Bitterroot Valley in the Territory of Montana,' approved June fifth, eighteen hundred and seventy-two." (Part II., Nos. 70, and 102.) This act was approved February 11, 1874, and extends the time for sale and payment on the lands therein referred to for the period of two years from the expiration of the time allowed by act of June 5, 1872, to wit, two years from and after the date when the time for payment would otherwise expire in each case. The second section allows these lands to be taken under the homestead laws in the same manner as other public lands, and you will treat them accordingly. Please acknowledge receipt. Respectfully, WILLIS DRUMMOND, Commissioner. REGISTER AND RECEIVER, Helena, Mont. No. 570. INSTRUCTIONS. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND-OFFICE, Washington, D. C., July 18, 1874. GENTLEMEN:-Yours of April 13, 1874, has been received. I will reply briefly : 1st. All sections, odd and even, opened to settlement by act approved June 5, 1872, entitled "An act to provide for the removal of the Flathead and other Indians from Bitterroot Valley, in the Territory of Montana," are subject to pre-emption and homestead entry. 2d. Settlers may file on odd in the same manner as on even sections. 3d. A settler should name the actual date of his settlement in his declaratory statement. That he does not do this is not ground for rejecting his filing. In any case where it becomes material, a decision will be rendered after the whole case shall have been duly presented, and until the dates alleged in a declaratory statement are proven incorrect, they must be treated as true. 4th. Settlers are allowed to homestead 160 acres, and commute the same as in ordinary cases at $1.25 per acre. Respectfully, S. S. BURDETT, Commissioner. REGISTER AND RECEIVER, Helena, Montana Territory. VI. LOCATION OF DAKOTA OR SIOUX HALF-BREED SCRIP. No. 571. CIRCULAR. GENERAL LAND-OFFICE, GENTLEMEN :-Questions frequently arise in regard to the location of Dacotah or Sioux Half-Breed Scrip issued some years ago from the Office of Indian Affairs. The issue was as follows: 2 for 40 acres each; 1 for 80 acres; and 2 for 160 acres each, making an aggregate for each. one of 480 acres, designated thus, for example, in the first case: No. 1 A, 40 acres; No. 1 B, 40 acres; No. 1 C, 80 acres; No. 1 D, 160 acres; No. 1 E, 160 acres. This scrip, as declared on its face, is locatable upon the following described classes of lands, viz: Upon the Sioux Half-breed reservation situated wholly in the Saint Peter Land District, in Minnesota; being in townships 108 to 110, ranges 9 to 15. APPLICATION OF SCRIP TO SPECIAL LOCALITIES. 1st. The scrip may be located by the Half-breed upon any land within this reserve upon which, at the date of the act of July 17, 1854, he was an actual bona-fide settler. 2d. Upon any land within said reservation which, at the date of said act, was not so occupied by a Half-breed, or any other person who may have gone into said reservation under authority of law. To constitute a Half-breed or Mixed-blood an actual and bona fide SETTLER within the meaning of the statute, it must be shown, by proof satisfactory to you, that he was an occupant by personal inhabitation within said reservation at or before the passage of the act of July 17, 1854, and in such case he will be entitled to locate his scrip, embracing his improvements, conforming to the legal subdivisions of the public surveys, unless such location interferes with another bona-fide` settler, when each will be allowed to take such subdivisions as will embrace his improvements. The persons who have "gone into said territory by authority of law" are, as the land officers at Saint Peter will understand, only such white persons as, prior to the passage of said act of July 17, 1854, had entered said reservation under the Indian Intercourse laws-such as licensed traders, authorized missionary teachers, and other persons in the employ of Government in connection with Indian affairs, and who inhabited the lands and made improvements thereon prior to said act. APPLICATION OF SCRIP TO GENERAL LOCALITIES. Besides these special stipulations in the law in regard to locations in the Minnesota Half-breed reservation, the aforesaid statute enlarges the sphere of location by authorizing the location of the scrip 3d. "Upon any other unoccupied lands subject to pre-emption or private sale." You will understand, however, that no mineral or reserved lands can be taken by this scrip, nor can it be located upon the even-numbered, double minimum, reserved sections, nor upon any lands on which there is an actual settlement; but it may be located 4th. "Upon any other unsurveyed lands, not reserved by Government, upon which they have respectively made improvements." Where the Half-breed for himself may make actual settlement, his improvements will be notice on the ground to any other settler, and in this respect he will stand on the same basis as a pre-emptor on unsurveyed land, and, of course, cannot adjust his location until after the return of the township plat to the district land-office. Hereafter, and within three months, he should repair to such land-office, file his scrip with his affidavit, designating specifically, in compact legal subdivisions, the tracts embracing his improvements, and should state in his affidavit the character and extent of these improvements, and file testimony of competent witnesses corroborative of his statement. The land selected in satisfaction of a certificate of scrip must, of course, be located in the name of the party in whose favor the scrip is issued, and the location may be made by him or her in person, or by his or her guardian or duly authorized agent. The application should be duly attested in each case by the Register and Receiver, and attached to each should be your certificate to the following effect: "We hereby certify that the within scrip has, this day of been located on the 1864. containing acres, agreeably to the act of 17th July, 1854, and by the party duly authorized to make the location. "Attest: "Register. "Receiver." No receipt is to be issued to the locator, except in unavoidable cases, where there may be a small excess in the area of the location over the scrip, and in that case it must be paid for, and the Receiver will issue his receipt, which he will number and account for, as in the case of bounty-land warrant excess. But no certificate of purchase is to be issued; the scrip and application, instead of certificates of purchase, being the instruments of title, which are to be returned to the General Land-Office in this class of business. The Register, however, in the case of excess payments, will append to the application his official statement that acres of said tract (the excess) have been paid for, per Receiver's receipt. No. Your proceedings in locating the certificates, and your official returns, are to be kept entirely separate and distinct from other sales and locations. At the close of each month the Register and Receiver will make a separate official return of scrip located, with all the papers on file connected with each location, accompanied by a monthly abstract. You will observe that this scrip is NOT ASSIGNABLE, transfers of the same being held void; consequently each certificate, as herein before stated, can only be located in the name of the Half-breed; and such certificates or scrip are not to be treated as money, but located acre for acre. No fees or commissions of any kind are allowed by this Office for services of the land officers in this matter, such being an incident to their general duties; and you are, therefore, hereby interdicted from charging or receiving any compensation for such services. This scrip is, of course, not applicable to any class of Indian Trust Lands, but only to unreserved, unincumbered public lands. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, REGISTER AND RECEIVER at J. M. EDMUNDS, Commissioner. No. 572. CIRCULAR. Requirements in locating Sioux Half-Breed Scrip. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., January 29, 1872. TO REGISTERS AND RECEIVERS, UNITED STATES DISTRICT LAND OFFICES. GENTLEMEN:-It has been brought to the notice of this Office that Sioux H. B. Scrip has frequently been filed in the local land-office for unsurveyed lands, and that, under the shadow of title thus acquired, the land has been denuded of the timber or otherwise depreciated, and after survey the parties would allow the time for adjustment to pass without action, and then withdraw the Scrip from the Office and file it for, or relocate it upon, other land. The provision of the law of July 17, 1854, under which the Scrip was issued, on its applicability to unsurveyed land, provides for its location on any unsurveyed lands not reserved by Government, upon which the Indians, to whom the Scrip issued, shall have made improve ments. With the view, therefore, to protect fully the Government interests and to carry out the law in its meaning, you are directed to see that the following requirements are strictly complied with, where application is made to file said Scrip for unsurveyed lands: 1st. That the application must be accompanied with the affidavit of the Indian, or other evidence that the land contains improvements made by or under the personal supervision or direction of said Indian, giving a detailed description of said improvements, and that they are for his personal use and benefit; in other words, you should be satisfied that the Indian has a direect connection with the land, and is claiming the same for his personal use. Unless such evidence is filed, you will reject the application. |