INDIAN RESERVATIONS, JUNE 30, 1886. 



EXTINGUISHING THE INDIAN TITLE TO LANDS. 



Preliminary to survey of lands within the public domain the United 

 States requires the extinction of the Indian title or Indian right of oc- 

 cupancy thereof. Without this being done the surveys will not be 

 made. 



The ninth article of the Articles of Confederation declared — 

 The United States in Congress assembled have the sole and exclusive right and 

 power of regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians not members 

 of any of the States : Provided, That the legislative right of any State within its own 

 limits be not infringed or violated. 



Under this, September 22, 1783, Congress issued a proclamation, pro- 

 hibiting and forbidding all persons from making settlements on lands 

 inhabited or claimed by Indians without the limits or jurisdiction of 

 any particular State, and from purchasing or receiving any gift or ces- 

 sion of such lands or claims without the express authority and direction 

 of the United States in Congress assembled. 



It farther declared that every such purchase or settlement, gift, or 

 cession, not having the authority aforesaid, should be " null and void," 

 and that no right or title should accrue in consequence of any such 

 purchase, gift, cession, or settlement. 



INDIAN OCCUPANCY TITLE TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN— HOW EXTIN- 

 GUISHED. 



From the organization of the National Government it has been the 

 rule of the nation to purchase the occupancy right from the Indians, 

 generally giving them more value in the compensation than the use of 

 the ceded lands is worth to the Indians.* The Government has never 

 attempted to survey and dispose of lands prior to their cession by the 

 Indians. 



The civil status of the Indians has been defi ned by a long series of 

 statutes and court rulings. 



In the cases of the Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (5 Peters, 1) and 

 Worcester v. Georgia (6 Peters, 515) the Indian tribes residing within 

 the United States were recognized in some se nse as political bodies, 

 not as foreign nations nor as domestic nations, but still possessing and 



^Forcessions of lands by Indian tribes in Indiana to tbe United States, see article by C. C. Eoyce 

 in the First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1879-80, Washington, D. C, and Statutes of 

 United States, 1789 to 1886. 



For an interesting and valuable account of the American aboriginal land system and title, see 

 pages 278-298, "Labor Land and Law," by Hon. Wm. A. Phillips. 



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