Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 1860
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University of Oklahoma College of Law University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899 11-29-1860 Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 1860 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/indianserialset Part of the Indian and Aboriginal Law Commons Recommended Citation S. Exec. Doc. No. 2, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess.(1860) This Senate Executive Document is brought to you for free and open access by University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899 by an authorized administrator of University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. 49 REPORT OF THE CO~I~IJISSIONER OF TI-IE GENER.AL LAND OFFICE. ' GENERAL LAND OFFICE, November 29, 1860. Sn-t: During the past year the operations of the land system have extended by direct administrq.tive action within the limits of all the political divisions embracing the public domain, to wit: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, California, Oregon, Minnesota, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and to the Territories of Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, (known as Dacotah,) Washington, New Mexico, and Utah. Our correspondence has passed those limits, having extended within all the other members of the Confederacy where non-resident claimants hold interests, requiring adjustment under bounty land grants for services in the war of the revolution, in the last war with Great Britain, the war with Mexico, with Indian tribes, under foreign titles, and under other grants in great diversity. Of the 3,250,000 of square miles which constitute the territorial extent of the Union, the public lands embrace an area of 2,265,625 square miles, or 1,450,000,000 of acres, being more than two thirds of our geographical extent, and nearly three times as large as the United ' States at the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace in 1783 with Great Britain. This empire domain extends fi·om the northern line of Texas, the Gulf of :Mexico, reaching to the Atlantic ocean, north westerly to the Canada line bordering upon the great lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, extending westward to the Pacific ocean, with Puget's Sound on the north, the Mediterranean sea of our extreme northwestern possessions. It includes fifteen sovereignties known as the "Land States," and an extent of territory sufficient for thirty-two additional, each equal to the great central land State of Ohio. It embraces soils capable of abundant yield of the rich productions of the tropics, of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn, and the grape, the vintage, now a staple, particularly so of California; of the great cereals, wheat and corn, in the western, northwestern, and Pacific States, and in that vast interior region from the valley of the Mississippi river to the Rocky Mountains ; and thence to the chain formed by the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, the eastern wall of the Pacific slope, every variety of soil is found revealing its wealth. 4 50 REPORT OF THE Instead of dreary inarable wastes, as supposed in earlier times, the millions of buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, the primitive inhabitants of the soil, fed by the hand of nature, attest its capacity for the abun dant support of a dense population through the skillful toil of the agriculturist, dealing with the earth under the guidance of the science of the present age. Not only is the yield of food for man in this region abundant, but it holds in its bosom the precious metals of gold, silver, with cinnabar, the useful metals of iron, lead, copper, interspersed with immense belts or strata of that propulsive element coal, the source of riches and power, and now the indispensable agent not only for domestic pur poses of life, but in the machine shop, the steam car, and steam vessel, quickening the advance of civilization and the permanent settlement of the country, and being the agent of active and constant intercom munication with every part of the republic. Not a year had elapsed from the definitive treaty of peace in 1783 before the Congress of the Confederation took the initiative for estab ,lishing a 'system for the disposal of the then existing western lands, and on the 20th May, 1785, the requisite ordinance for that purpose was passed by which the Board of Treasury was authorized to dispose of the surveyed lands in the western territory, commencing sales at New York or Philadelphia, with power to adjourn to any part of the United States. All beyond the present western limits of the States of Pennsylvania, l\1aryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia was a wilderness, traversed only by the Mobilian Indians, the Uchees, Cher okees, Cheraws, and the Algonquin family, extending from the thirty fifth parallel to the north of the great lakes, into Canada. After the more perfect union was formed by the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, which went into operation on the 30th April, 1789, Congress, on the 2d September, 1789, transferred to the Treasury Department the duty of the disposal of the public lands) the patents for the same to be prepared by the State Department. Thereafter, in 1812, the General Land Office was created, and by the law of 4th July, 1836, and other acts, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior and President of the United States, is clothed with the power of "super vision and control," in regard to the "executive duties" then "pre scribed," or which might thereafter ((beprescribed by law, appertaining to the surveying and sale of the public lands of the United States, or in any wise respecting such public lands; and, also, such as relate to private claims of lands, and the issuing of patents for all grants of land under the authority of the government of the United States." The next subject to be considered is the inceptive measures taken in the infancy of the republic, and the progress since made in regard to · the survey and disposal of our land inheritance. Immediately after the inauguration of President Washington, he laid before Congress a report from the Secretary of War acknowledging the Indian right of occupancy, and recognizing the principle of acquir ing their claims by purchase for specific consideration, according to the "practice of the late English colonies and government in purchasing SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR. 51 the Indian claims," the rule in that respect laid down in the procla mation of 7th October, 1763, by the King of Great Britain, interdicting purchases of land by private individuals from the Indians, and declar ing that, ''if at any time any of the said Indians should be inclined to dispose of said lands," the same " shall be purchased only" for the crown, the ultimate dominion and sovereignty being ·held to reside in the discoverer colonizing upon the continent. The highest judicial department of our government, in the case of Johnson, lessee, vs. Mcintosh, (8 Peters' Reports,) has affirmed this as a principle of right now beyond qestion. In accordance with this principle, beginning with the treaty of 1795, at Greenville, the Indian title has been extinguished by the United States from the great lakes to the Natchez settlement, taking its name from the tribal relations to the Mexican (Aztec) Indians in all the States east of the Mississippi, leaving, however, remnants of tribes, such as the Stockbridges, Brotbertown, or Mohegans, individual Creeks and Choc taws, Pottawatomies, Mianiies, and others, who have been invested by act of Congress or treaty with allodial titles. Besides this, the Indian usufruct has been extinguishedin the tier of States west of the Mississippi, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the northern line of Iowa, includ ing the greater portion of the State of Minnesota-about one third of Minnesota (Dacotah) Territory-half of Kansas, one tenth of Nebraska, in Oregon and vV ashington, east and west of the Cascades ; provision having been made there for the concentration and settlement of the Indians in home reservations of limited extent. In California the Indians have not been recognized as holding any specific tracts of country; but have been collected and transferred to reservations set apart for their protection. In the larger part of New Mexico the great body of the Indians are purely nomadic, excepting those claiming pueblos with ascertained limits, and the tribes of the Icarillos, Mezcaleros, Mimbres, Gila Apaches, Pimos, and Maricopas, for which limited reservations are proposed. With the Utahs no treaties for the extinction of the Indian title have been made. Our surveying system began in the tract of country in Ohio, known as the old seven ranges. The surveys were run and established from the Ohio river, as a base line, northward and westward, each township, six miles square, being then as at the present, laid off into thirty-six sections or square miles. As the surveys progressed various improve ments were introduced to secure regularity and convenience of descrip tion, by the establishment of base lines, meridians, and standard par allels) through certain permanent natural points, the mouths of rivers, such as the Great Miami, Ohio, Arkansas, St. Francis; and more recently the summits of mountains, as Mount Diablo, San Bernardino, Humboldt in California, the isolated peak 210 feet on the bank of the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, each of these mountain tops overlooking an immense area, and all constituting monuments and witness posts to endure for all time.