copy thereof is furnished to the General Land Office, where it is noted and information is communicated to the United States land officers, after which the lands are disposed of as other public lands. Indian reservations existing by virtue of treaty stipulations are usually abolished in the manner following: An agreement is entered into between the chiefs and headmen of the Indians, and agents or commissioners appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, with or without authority of Congress, for that purpose; such agreement is submitted to Congress for acceptance and ratification, and provides for the relinquishment, for valuable considerations, of a part or the whole of the lands claimed by the Indians either under treaty stipulations or otherwise. By a clause in the Indian appropriation act approved March 3, 1871 (16 Stat., p. 566), it is declared that no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall thereafter be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty, hence, since that time mere agreements have been entered into, subject to ratification by Congress and the President, such agreements being sometimes entered into under authority of a prior act of Congress, and sometimes, as in the case of the last Ute agreement, agreed upon and then submitted to Congress. In a case like the last mentioned, the agreement, as ratified by Congress, still remains to be ratified by a certain proportion of the Indians affected by such agreement, before it becomes valid. NUMBER AND LOCATION OF RESERVATIONS. The total number of Indian reservations in the United States, June 30, 1880, was 147, two-thirds of the area of which will eventually be restored to the public domain for sale and disposition, after purchase of occupancy title from the Indians, and setting aside portions of the same to be held by the Indians in severalty or otherwise, as may be ordered by Congress. These reservations contain 154,436,362 acres, with an estimated population of 255,938, or about 603.41 acres to each Indian, and are situated in the following States and Territories: Location and names of reservations, together with area and population, to June 30, 1880. Location and names of reservations, together with area and population, &c.—Continued. Total number of reservations, 147; total acreage, 154,436,362 acres. The total number of Indians is 255,938, which gives about 603.41 acres to each Indian. The total number of reservations includes the twenty Indian pueblos in New Mexico, sixteen of which have been patented to the Indians; also the Moqui pueblos in Arizona. The following note was received through the General Land Office in relation to the two items mentioned: The Indian Office has no publication giving the original method of dealing with the Indians as to titles and changes in methods, neither has the office anything showing how much it has cost the Government to extinguish Indian titles to public domain, all the preparation of such information would be so extensive a work as to preclude the possibility of its being furnished at present. REFERENCES HEREUNDER. See Report of Public Land Commission, 1880; Laws and Decisions; Revised Statutes of the United States, secs. 2039 to 2178; same, on performance of engagements between the United States and Indians, secs. 2079 to 2110; same, on government and protection of Indians, secs. 2111 to 2116; same, on government of the Indian country, secs. 2127 to 2156; 6 Cranch, 646; 8 Wheaton, 543; 7 Johnston, 246; Indian treaties, U. S. Stats. at Large; act of Congress March 26, 1804, sec. 15, dividing Louisiana into two Territories; Bump's Notes of Constitutional Decisions, titles "Indians" and "Territories." |