11-H INDIAN TRIBES OF CALIFORNIA HEARING BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS SIXTY-NINTH CONGRESS 139 i INDIAN TRIBES OF CALIFORNIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, Wednesday, May 5, 1926. The subcommittee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. F. D. Letts (chairman) presiding. Mr. LETTS. This hearing is on two bills relating to Indians in California; one, H. R. 8036, introduced by the later Mr. Raker; and the other, H. R. 9497, introduced by Mrs. Kahn. The bills will be inserted in the record at this point. (The bills referred to are as follows:) [H. R. 8036, Sixty-ninth Congress, first session] A BILL Authorizing any tribe or band of Indians of California to submit claims to the Court of Claims Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all claims of whatsoever nature that any tribe or band of Indians of California may have against the United States by reason of those certain eighteen treaties ratified by the chiefs and head men of the several tribes and bands of Indians of California, which said treaties were submitted to the Senate of the United States by President Fillmore for ratification on the 1st day of June, 1852, or by deprivation of the lands and goods referred to in said treaties, or the failure or refusal of the United States to compensate said tribes or bands of Indians for lands occupied and claimed by them, as referred to in said treaties, and which lands are claimed to have been taken from them without compensation, may be submitted to the Court of Claims for determination of the amount, if any, due said tribes or bands from the United States; and jurisdiction is hereby conferred upon the Court of Claims of the United States, with the right of either party to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, to hear and determine all such claims, if any, of said tribes or bands against the United States, and to enter judgment thereon. SEC. 2. If any claim or claims be submitted to said courts they shall settle the rights therein, both legal and equitable, notwithstanding lapse of time or statutes of limitation, or the fact that the said claim or claims have not been presented to any other tribunal, including the commission created by the act of March 3, 1851 (Ninth Statutes at Large, page 631): Provided, That any judgment for said claimants shall be for an amount equal to the fair value of the compensation provided for the Indians in said treaties, including the lands described in said treaties, not to exceed $1.25 per acre for the said lands, with interest thereon at 4 per centum per annum from June 1, 1852, to the date of the judgment. Any judgment which may have been made by the United States upon any claim or claims made under the provisions of this act shall not be pleaded as an estoppel, but may be pleaded by way of set-off, and any sums: paid to or expended by the United States for the benefit of the claimants shall be credited to the United States as of the dates the court finds such payments or expenditures to have been made. SEC. 3. The claims of those entitled to sue under the provisions of this: act shall be presented jointly by petition, which shall be filed within two years after the passage of this act. Said petition shall be subject to amendment. Any tribe or band of Indians or claimants the court may deem necessary to a final and just determination of a claim that has been filed under the HAN 1 provisions of this act may be joined as a party plaintiff notwithstanding the fact that the said tribe or band or claimants have not filed a claim within two years after the passage of this act. The petition shall be signed and verified by the attorney or attorneys employed by the claimants under contract approved by the Secretary of the Interior. Verification may be upon information and belief as to the facts alleged. Official letters, papers, documents, and public records, or certified copies thereof, may be used in evidence and the departments of the Government shall give the said attorney or attorneys access to such papers, correspondence, or records as may be necessary in the premises. SEC. 4. Any court rendering a judgment under the provisions of this act shall decree such fees as it shall find to be reasonable, not exceeding 10 per centum of the amount of the recovery, to be paid the attorney or attorneys employed by the claimants as compensation for their services in such action. In addition to the amounts above provided for in said judgment the court shall decree an amount to cover all necessary and proper expenses incurred in the preparation and prosecution of the claims herein authorized. SEC. 5. The amount of any judgment rendered, other than that provided for in section 4 hereof, shall be placed in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the claimants entitled thereto and shall draw interest at the rate of 4 per centum per annum until such time as the Congress shall otherwise direct. SEC. 6. For the purpose of this act the tribes or bands of Indians of California shall be construed to mean those Indians residing in California at the time of the alleged deprivation of their lands and their descendants. SEC. 7. Within eighteen months after the passage of this act the Secretary of the Interior, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, shall cause a roll to be made of the persons entitled to claim thereunder. Said roll shall be a public record and made accessible to claimants, their agents and attorneys at reasonable times. Any person claiming to be entitled to share under the provisions of this act may within two years after its approval present or cause to be presented to said Secretary an application in writing for his enrollment as a claimant hereunder. At any time within two and one-half years after the approval of this act the said Secretary shall have the right to alter and revise said roll, at the end of which time said roll shall be final and conclusive as to the rights of the persons entitled to share under this act. ¡H. R. 9497, Sixty-ninth Congress, first session] A BILL To provide funds for the reimbursement of the Indians of California for lands taken from them under the eighteen treaties of 1851 and 1852, and without treaty. and under subsequent court decisions for which no compensation has heretofore been made; and to provide for the administration of the appropriation herein made, including the creation of a commission to have charge of said administration Whereas in 1851 and 1852 there were concluded between a large proportion of the uncivilized Indians of California and the representatives of the Government of the United States eighteen treaties, under which certain Indian tribes in California, represented by four hundred and one chiefs. captains, and headsmen, bound their tribes to live under the jurisdiction of the United States and to accept certain lands as a perpetual assignment to them by the Government in lieu of all other lands to which these Indians had the right of possession from hundreds of years of undisturbed occupancy. and also the right of possession under the laws of Mexico prior to the cession of California to the United States: and Whereas the early recognition of the claim of prior occupancy in the United States is shown by the following communication, drawn up by General Knox, Secretary of War, and transmitted to Congress on June 15, 1789, by George Washington, President of the United States: It can "The Indians, being the prior occupants, possess the right of soil. not be taken from them unless by their free consent, or by right of conquest in cast of a just war. To dispossess them on any other principle would be a gross violation of the fundamental laws of nature, and of that distributive justice which is the glory of a nation"; and Whereas due to the great influx of white immigrants into California during the gold rush of 1849 and succeeding years and their insistence on unrestricted rights in all parts of the State, the ratification of these treaties by the Senate of the United States was never carried out, but on the other hand, all of the lands which the Indians had agreed to cede to the United States were taken from them, together with by far the greater part of the lands to which they were promised title under the terms of said treaties, and title to said lands, taken as aforesaid, together with title to other lands possessed by other uncivilized Indians of California with whom no treaties were ever made, was assumed by the United States without process of law and has since been patented in a greater part to other persons; and Whereas all of the more civilized or so-called Mission Indians of California, who were in occupation of lands granted to other persons by the Governments of Spain and Mexico with express reservations protecting the right of occupation of such Indians, failed to receive the protection promised by the Government of the United States as specified in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848; and Whereas as a result of said failure to ratify the treaties made with certain Indians by its duly authorized commissioners, and of said failure to make any treaties at all with certain other Indians before assuming title to the lands occupied by them, the United States Government and its patentees have obtained without compensation not only the areas set aside as reservations under the eighteen unconfirmed treaties but also all of the lands originally possessed by said Indians: and Whereas at the time of the white invasion of California the whole of the land now included in the State was owned and occupied by Indian tribes, the boundaries of which tribes were as definitely fixed as those between our States and counties; and Whereas the State of California contains one hundred and fifty-five thousand six hundred and fifty-two square miles of land, or ninety-nine million six hundred and seventeen thousand two hundred and eighty land acres, all of which originally belonged to and was occupied by the native Indian tribes; and Whereas the Government has derived from sales of parts of the public domain in California, the greater part of which was ceded to the United States by the Indians under the terms of said eighteen treaties, over $22,785,000 up to June 30, 1918, according to the report of the Board of Indian Commissioners for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1920, while, on the other hand, all the land the California Indians have been awarded during the seventy-five years that have elapsed since these treaties were made amounts to less than four hundred and fifty thousand acres, or a per capita acreage as of 1925 of less than twenty-our acres, most of which land is wholly unfit for cultivation or even habitation; and Whereas it is an established historic fact universally admitted that great injustice has been done the Indians of California by confiscating their lands, by driving hundreds of them in the dead of winter through rain and mud and snow to faraway unlegal "reservations "---men, women, and little children, including the old, the feeble, and the sick-many perishing on the way from hardship and the brutality of the drivers, by forcing thousands into remote and inhospitable parts of the State, by depriving them of their natural food, thereby causing many to die of starvation, by imprisoning them for killing deer or taking fish, by inoculating them with fatal diseases. and on several occasions by massacreing large numbers in cold blood, while for a period of at least fifteen years (1849-1864) in certain parts of the State they were hunted and shot down with little or no pretext; and Whereas since 1848, when the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferring absolute possession of California from Mexico to the United States was confirmed, citizens of the United States have occupied millions of acres rightfully belonging to Indians and have profited from the use thereof by hundreds of millions of dollars; and Whereas it is now the desire of Congress to make such reparation as can be made by the Government of the United States to the surviving descendants of all of the Indians of California from whom said lands were taken without compensation through the failure of the Senate to ratify the treaties made |