Treaty with the Cherokee Nation. Letter from the Acting Secretary of the Interior, relative to the sixteenth article of the treaty of 19th July, 1866, with the Cherokee Nation of Indians

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 20th ultimo~ transmitting the report and accompanying papers presented to the Department by Thomas Wistar and George-Howland, jr., who were appointed commiss;oners to arrange certain difficulties between the Cherokee and Osage Indians, growing out of the change of the line of the 96th meridian.In compliance with your instructions to state my views and suggestions thereon, I respectfully report as follows, viz:It l>eing the policy of the Go,ernment to remove from the State of Kansas, so far as possible, Indian tribes residing therein, the Great and Little Osages were, in accordance with section 12 of the Indian appropriation act, approved July 15, 1870, (Stat.at IJarge, vol.16, p. 362,) induced to dispose of their lands in that State and remove to the Indian Territory, where a suitable reservation in compact form, equal to 160 acres for each member of the tribe, was to be provided for them west of the 96th meridian, the United States hm-ing the right to settle friendly Indians thereon, as provided in the Cherokee treaty of July 19, 1866.(Stat.at Large, vol.14, p. 799.)A preliminary survey was made in order to determine, as nearly as was at that time practicable, the line of the 96th meridian, and the Osages thereupon selected and removed to a tract adjoining and immediately west of the supposed line, believed to be 60 miles in length from north to south, and 14.58! miles from east to west, and to contain 560,000 acres.Recently the official survey of the line of the 9Gth meridian has been made, and is shown to be about 3~ miles to the west, and the length of the tract assigned to the Osages to be but 59 miles 68.53 chains.thereby throwing a part of the Osage lands, with most of their valuable improvements, east of the 9Gth meridian, and reducing the quantity of land embraced in said tract to 506,934 acres.To remedy the embarrassment caused by this discovery, :Messrs.Wistar and Howland were designated by the Department as commissioners to arrange with the Cherokee authorities for the purpose of securing, if practicable, their assent to the Osages remaining on that portion of their lands thrown east of the 96th meridian by the survey; otherwise to select a. new reservation for them, and full instructions were given said commissioners to that end by this office, under date of November 4, 1871.From the report of said commissioners now submitted, it appears that, the Osages have agreed to take, in lieu of the lands first assigneu them in the Cherokee country, the whole of the tract lying between the 96th meridian "and the main channel of the .Arkansas River, with the south line of the State of Kansas for a northern l>oundary, and the North Creek line and the main channel of the Arkansas River for a southern and western boundars," the price to be fixed by the President.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.