Friday, November 9, 2012

THE DAWES ACT OF 1887, COURT OF PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS ACT OF 1891 AND GAO'S 2004 TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO REPORT







THE DAWES ACT OF 1887, COURT OF PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS ACT OF 1891 AND THE GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE (GAO'S) 2004 TREATY OF  GUADALUPE HIDALGO REPORT ARE MIRROR IMAGES OF THE GOVERNMENT'S NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD INDIAN, SPANISH AND MEXICAN TREATIES AND PROPERTY RIGHT'S DURING THE LATE 1800's AND EARLY 1900's.  



INTRODUCTION

            The following is written in hopes that it might cause further research into various ways to approach the necessity of undoing grave injustices perpetrated upon the Indian, Spanish and Mexican people and the unlawful taking of vast portions of their Reservations and Land Grants during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
            The information represents a comparative history of the groups addressed and invites further research in seeking remedies to heal the open veins of a century of intentional governmental maltreatment.

THE HISTORY

             It is not enough that historians research and document the maltreatment of individual protected groups. They must also draw comparisons of the maltreatment of different protected groups within the same time period if they are to fully comprehend the consequence of such maltreatment.
             It is the purpose of this paper to draw a comparison not only of the difference in treatment of the general population compared to the Native American; or the difference in the treatment of the general population compared to the treatment of the Spanish, Mexican and Pueblo Indian land grantees in the Southwest in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—but to also draw a comparison of the difference in treatment of these protected groups compared with each other. In other words, in order to arrive at an accurate historical understanding of the prevalent adverse treatment, it is essential that we draw comparisons between the manner in which each of these groups were being maltreated during the same period of time.
             While researching the disregard Congress had for Native American, Spanish and Mexican citizens property rights between 1887 and the present, two facts became abundantly clear, Congress had no moral compass—and the executive and judicial branches were in lock-step with Congress.
             The first congressional act I will address is the 1887 Dawes Act, the title and purpose of which began quite innocuously. The title simply stated that the law was being enacted to:
             …[P] rovide for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty to Indians on the Various Reservations, and to Extend the Protection of the Laws of the United States and the Territories Over the Indians, and for Other Purposes.
             It wasn't totally unreasonable to conclude from those words that the true purpose of the act was to allot land to Indians in severalty. However, in reading further, Congress’ use the of the term "over the Indians” rather than "to the Indians,” and its addition of the term "and for other purposes,” jumped off the page as they well should have. The term "for other purposes," offers no hint of what Congress was planning to accomplish. All that was clear was that its use was a clear forewarning of an ominous result.
              The true intent of the act did not surface until Section Five: Congress’ true intent was to establish a process granting the president the power to remove lands from reservations which had been created for the use of the Indians by "treaty stipulation, by virtue of an act of Congress, or by executive order." Regardless of whether the lands were agricultural; had been sold with or without irrigation; or had been released to the United States by an Indian tribe; it was the intent of Congress that the land removed from the reservations should be:          
             …[H]eld by the United States for the sole purpose of securing  homes to actual setters…disposed of by the United States to “actual and bona fide setters only”…
             The Dawes Act made it clear that it was the intention of Congress to abrogate the government’s treaty responsibilities to the tribes—to remove as much land as possible from the Reservations.
              Several additional references to the Dawes Act that need to be compared with the terms of the Court of Private Land Claims Act, bear mentioning. Among the problems created by the language in the Dawes act was congress’s intention to distribute reservation land in a manner that was in conflict with the laws regarding descent and distribution which were in existence at the time.

              The method Congress chose to distribute the land to the Indians in severalty was to allot it as follows:
               Each head of a family would receive one-quarter of a section; [160 acres].
               Each single person over eighteen years of age would receive one-eighth of a section; [80 acres].
               Each orphan child under eighteen years of age would receive one-eighth of a section; [80 acres].
               Each other single person under eighteen years now living, or who may be born prior to the date of the order of the President directing an allotment of the lands embraced in any reservation would receive one sixteenth of a section: [40 acres].
               Even though the planned distribution was contrary in a number of respects to the laws of descent and distribution of the various states and territories, the act:
               Provided that the law of descent and distribution in force in the State orTerritory where such lands are situate shall apply thereto after patents therefore have been executed and delivered.…
               By drafting the act and allotting the land as it did, Congress was denying married women a share of land. Of course, had married women been allowed their rightful share of the land the result would have had the effect of reducing the amount of land the government was attempting to take from the reservations and give to the "actual and bona fide setters." An anomaly in the language was that once the Indians had received their allotments, Congress required that:
               Sec. 5. … upon the approval of the allotments provided for in this act by the Secretary of the Interior, he shall cause patents to issue therefore in the name of the allottees … and declare that the United States … will hold the land thus allotted, for a period of twenty-five years, in trust for the sole use and benefit of the Indian to whom such allotment shall have been made …: Provided, that the President of the United States may in any case in his discretion extend the period. 
               Yet, in the case of the “actual and bona fide settlers”, the holding period was different. It stated that:
                …[A]fter the expiration of five years occupancy thereof as a homestead; [patents could issue].
               To establish further evidence of how hypocritical the Dawes Act was, we need only to quote from a sentence from Section 6:
               …[N]o Territory shall pass or enforce any law denying any such Indian within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.
              The language of the Dawes Act clearly established that Congress was perfectly comfortable enacting legislation which not only abrogated the government’s treaty responsibilities; it was perfectly comfortable in ignoring the Indians rights to equal protection of the law.
              Just five years after the passage of the Dawes Act it became clear from a passage in Harrison's 1892 Farewell address how effective the Dawes Act had been in separating the Indians from their land. He stated:




               [T]he enormous cessions of Indian lands which have been opened to settlement, aggregating during this Administration [from 1889 through 1892] nearly 26,000,000 acres, and the agreements renegotiated and now pending in Congress for ratification by which about 10,000,000 additional acres will be opened to settlement, it will be seen how much has been accomplished.
               In the five years between passage of the Dawes Act and Harrison's reelection loss, thirty-six million acres of Indian lands, created for their use, had been taken from them by the artifice of transferring their common lands to them individually.

               Emily Greenwald, in her book, Reconfiguring the Reservation: The Nez Perces, Jicarilla Apaches, and the Dawes Act, [UNM Press, 2002]  at chapter six, note 3, page 173 provides the following information regarding the effect of the Dawes Act and its progeny, as follows:
               3. Leonard A. Carlson compiled the following figures:                        
                              Indian acreage in 1881                         155,632,312
                              Indian acreage in 1933                         52,651,393
                              Acres lost                                             102,980,919
                              Acres opened as surplus                      22,594,658
                              Acreage of allotments sold                   3,752,923
                              Total lost through the Dawes act          26,447,581
               It was her conclusion that the Nez Perces lost 600,000 acres of their land directly but that the Jicarilla lost none of its land.
               In 1891 Congress expanded its focus. It struck once again by designing and passing laws which allowed the government to take land which had belonged for decades to grantees and heirs of Spanish and Mexican land grants: to once again take treaty protected land; land which had protected by the very language of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Congress would this time establish a Court of Private Land Claims and a Forest Reserve Act to relieve the Spanish and Mexican settlers of millions of acres over the next fourteen years.
               One of Harrison's appointed justices, Wilbur F. Stone was even willing in the closing paragraph of an article he had written and which was presented to the 1904 annual meeting of the New Mexico Territorial Bar Association, to state the real reason the Court had taken 30,000,000 acres from the Spanish and Mexican land grants. And I quote:
               … [T]he reversion to the public domain of the general government of  more than 30,000,000 acres of [Spanish and Mexican grant] land comes the [sic]like new cession of country to the United States—a region illimitable in the undeveloped wealth of its coal, metals, agriculture and health—giving climate.
              To further aggravate the discriminatory turmoil caused by the Dawes, Court of Private Land Claims and Forest Reserve Acts, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) began an investigation in 2000 of the "fairness" of the resolution of the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty protected land grant claims and , after a four year
inquiry concluded that: 
              Not withstanding the compliance of the two New Mexico confirmation procedures [the Surveyor General and Court of Private Land Claims procedures] … the processes were inefficient and created hardships for the grantees.
              The GAO forewarned of its conclusion when, early in its report, it stated that whether racial prejudice had contributed to shortcomings in the land grant adjudication process would not be addressed as it was collateral to and beyond the scope of its report. As if that were not enough of an insult to the land grant community, it stated (and restated on three additional occasions) that:
               … [A]s agreed, GAO does not express an opinion on whether the United States fulfilled its obligations under the Treaty as a matter of international law.
              The GAO, having made it clear that it was not going to investigate whether racial prejudice existed in the adjudication process or whether the United States had fulfilled its obligations under the treaty, was left with nothing better to do than to detail a gopher to the local Home Depot to purchase a gallon or two of whitewash.
               Having touched upon Congress' use of its limitless powers to ignore equal protection of the law, and it's circumvention of treaty stipulations, we need next to direct attention to  evidence existing at the time of the government's attitude toward the Spanish and Mexican land grants and their grantees. In the interest of reaching legitimate conclusions about what the politicians were thinking at the time it is important to consider what they were saying.
               The Message To Congress (State of the Union Addresses) of the period provides excellent clues into the thinking in Washington at the time.  As an aside, addresses made before 1913 were referred to as “messages to congress” and were presented in writing and therefore left virtually no room for errors in interpretation or speculation.
               Harrison's 1891 address contained a statement regarding the passage of the Court of Private Land Claims Act and the appointment of the justices to the court:
               The judges of the Court of Private Land Claims, provided for by the Act of March 3, 1891, have been appointed and the court organized. It is now possible to give early relief to communities long repressed in their
development by unsettled land titles and to establish the possession and right of settlers whose lands have been rendered valueless by adverse and unfounded claims …
               Harrison dared to say to all the world, Spain and Mexico included, that with the organization of the court and his appointment of the justices complete, it was finally going to be possibly to “grant relief to those settlers who had been repressed in the development of their communities by the unfounded claims and unsettled titles of the Spanish and Mexican land grants.”
               Harrison's statement above was not an isolated comment as he mentioned land grants in all of his annual Messages to Congress as well. In an address prior to the passage of the Court of Private Land Claims and Forest Reserve Acts, he had previously stated:
                …[T]he subject of the unadjusted Spanish and Mexican land grants  and the urgent necessity for providing some commission or tribunal for the  trial of questions of title growing out of them were twice brought by me to  the attention of Congress at the last session. Bills have been reported from the proper committees in both houses upon the subject, and I very earnestly hope that this Congress will put an end to the delay which has attended the settlement of the disputes as to the title between the settlers and the claimants under the grants. These disputes retard the prosperity and disturb the peace of large and important communities.
               On another occasion, he stated:
               Your attention is called to the difficulty presented by the Secretary of  the Interior as to the administration of the law of March 3, 1891, establishing a Court of Private Land Claims. The small holdings intended to  be protected by the law are estimated to be more than 15,000 in number. The claimants are a most deserving class and their titles are supported by the  strongest equities. The difficulty grows out of the fact that the lands have largely been surveyed according to our methods…while the holdings, many of which have been in the same family for generations, are laid out in narrow strips a few rods wide upon a stream and running back to the hills for  pasturage and timber.…
                In each of President Harrison’s messages upon the subject he went out of his way to draw a distinction between the grantees of the land grants on the one hand, "whose lands are laid out in narrow strips a few rods wide", and the claimants, "who are a most deserving class" … [and whose] "titles are supported by the strongest equities."     
                Interestingly, the Court of Private Land Claims Act was devoid of language that even suggested that it had been enacted to protect the claims of the grantees. His statements were clear and unambiguous—the acts had been enacted “to resolve claims of claimants who were a most deserving class” and whose “titles were supported by the strongest equities.”  As if mention of Harrison's lack of concern for the grantees of the land grants and his concern for the “settlers” in the Southwest was not enough, he also addressed the subject in a communication directed specifically to members of Congress.
                The entire community (sic) where these large claims exist, and indeed  all of our people, are interested in an early and final settlement of them. No greater incubus can rest upon the energies of a people in the development of  a new country than that resulting from unsettled land titles.
                President Harrison was not alone in making such comments. His Secretary of Interior, John Noble, was also speaking up. On April 26, 1891 he was quoted in the New York Times as having said:
                The last Congress passed several measures which will affect the work of the  Interior Department considerably. The land laws were very materially altered.
                And:
                The act which creates the court to settle Mexican land claims will take    a great burden off the Interior Department, which has done whatever has been done in the way of adjusting these claims. The act, or something like it has long been needed, and the work of settling these cases, which involve millions of acres may now be said to be fairly begun.
               On the occasion of being asked who should replace him as Secretary of Interior upon Harrison’s having lost his bid for reelection, Noble was quoted as having said:
               Someone should be appointed who has no connection whatever with land grants in the West, unless the Administration wants to see this department of the Government attacked very bitterly on all sides….
               Moving on to President Theodore Roosevelt's administration, we find his attitude toward the Spanish and Mexican land grants and their grantees and heirs, was no different than those of President Harrison. The evidence irrefutably establishes that Roosevelt, (with help from Chief Forester, Gifford Pinchot), continued Harrison's scheme of removing as much land as possible from the Spanish and Mexican grants.
                On the very day Congress approved the CPLC’s act it also enacted an omnibus bill which included a section (mentioned above) that became known as the Forest Reserve Act. The significance of Section 24 of the omnibus bill is that it was used by Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, his national forest supervisor, to proclaim over 145 million acres of land as forest reserves. Unfortunately, a significant and large portion of the land taken for the forest reserves had previously belonged within Indian reservations and the Spanish and Mexican land grants in the Southwest.
                 Section 24 read as follows:
                 That the President of the United States may, from time to time, set apart and reserve, in any State or Territory having public land bearing forests, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations; and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof.
                 During Roosevelt’s presidency, he and Pinchot were prolific, to say the least, in their establishment of forest reserves. That is, until they were caught red handed attempting to establish a reserve in Washington State. In that instance they found themselves in serious trouble with Congress and the local people who had realized that thousands of acres of their state had been proclaimed a forest reserve.
                 The following is an explanation of what occurred once Roosevelt's proclamation was discovered. It is found in an article titled: The Forest Service: Fighting for Public Lands, (Understanding our Government), authored by Gerald W. Williams. The article addresses the quandary in which Roosevelt and Pinchot found themselves:
                 In January1907, there was considerable opposition to a Presidential proclamation that reserved thousands of acres of prime Douglas-fir timberlands in northern Washington State. The local press, chambers of commerce, and the Washington State congres-sional delegation protested that the reserve would cause undue hardship on residents by taking away  homestead and "prime" agricultural lands (the land, in fact, was not agricultural, abut[sic] heavily forested) as well as impeding the future development of the State.
                The article goes on to describe Roosevelt and Pinchot's manner of attempting to resolve the matter:
                After considerable pressure, Roosevelt and Pinchot relented by,  by[sic] saying that the reserve had been a "clerical" error. Soon thereafter, Senator  Charles W. Fulton of Oregon, who had been implicated in the land frauds in that State, introduced an amendment to the annual agricultural  appropriations bill.
               This amendment, the Fulton Amendment, prohibited the President from creating any additional forest reserves in the six western States of Washington Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado; took away presidential power to proclaim reserves, established under the Forest Reserve (Creative) Act of 1891; and gave Congress alone the authority to  establish reserves. However, before this bill was signed into law on March 4, 1907, Gifford Pinchot and the President came up with a plan.
               On the eve of the bill's signing, Chief Forester Pinchot and his assistant Arthur C. Ringland used a heavy blue pencil to draw many new forest reserves on maps. As soon as a map was finished and a proclamation written, the President signed the paper to establish another forest reserve. On March 1st and 2nd, Roosevelt established 17 new or combined forest reserves containing over 16 million acres in these six western states….
               These have since been referred to as the "Midnight Reserves." 
               Counting additional reserves that Roosevelt and Pinchot proclaimed in territories outside the six states, it is believed that they had actually converted more than 30 million acres to forest reserves in the two days the bill lay on Roosevelt's desk awaiting his signature.
                There could be no better support for the information provided in the article just quoted than Roosevelt's own words from his 1913 autobiography as subsequently compiled and edited in 2005 from research done by the National Geographic Society and Theodore Roosevelt Association staff:
                While the Agricultural Appropriation Bill was passing through the Senate, in 1907, Senator Fulton, of Oregon, secured an amendment  providing that the President could not set aside any additional National Forests in the six Northwestern States. This meant retaining some sixteen million of acres to be exploited by land grabbers and by the representatives of the great special interests, at the expense of the public interest.
               But for four years the Forest Service had been gathering field notes as to what forests ought to be set aside in these States, and so was prepared to act. It was equally undesirable to veto the whole agricultural bill, and to sign it with this amendment effective. Accordingly, a plan to create the necessary National Forest in these States before the Agricultural Bill could be passed  and signed was laid before me by Mr. Pinchot. I approved it. The necessary  papers were immediately prepared. I signed the last proclamation a couple of  days before by my signature, the bill became law; and when the friends of the special interests in the Senate got their amendment through and woke up, they discovered that sixteen million acres of timberland had been saved for the people by putting them in the National Forests before the land grabbers could get at them.
               The opponents of the Forest Service turned handsprings in their wrath; and dire were their threats against the Executive; but the threats could not be  carried out, and were really only a tribute to the efficiency of our action.

               According to a 2001 article by Dennis Cowals, entitled: Theodore Roosevelt and the Siuslaw National Forest:
               The forest reserves of the United States quadrupled to about 194,000,000 acres … [and was equal in area to] all the states on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Virginia and the states of Vermont, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. [Greater in] area than France, Belgium, and The Netherlands combined.
                Furthermore:
               Over Roosevelt's articulate objections, "An Act making appropriations for the Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth,  nineteen hundred and eight," H.R. 24815, Public Act No. 242, U.S.  Congress, 59th. 2nd Session, was passed on Feb. 25, 1907. Unwilling to  pocket-veto the entire appropriations act, Roosevelt permitted Gifford   Pinchot and his staff to identify some 16,000,000 acres of forest in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming which the President  then designated as new national forest lands by executive order, between Congress's passage of the bill and its signing on Marth [sic] 4th by the  reluctant President, who was now forbidden to create or enlarge the newly designated National Forests.

             It is important at this juncture to draw a comparison of two land grants in Northern New Mexico—to compare Harrison's 1892 Proclamation setting aside the Pecos River Forest Reserve with Roosevelt's 1905 Proclamation establishing the Jémez Forest Reserve.
  
             One significant difference was that Harrison's proclamation had been described by township and range while Roosevelt's, Jemez Forest Reserve Proclamation had no description—simply a grid map. Additionally, Harrison's proclamation had an important paragraph which was missing from Roosevelt's. It read:
              Excepting from the force and effect of this proclamation all land  which may have been prior to the date hereof embraced in any valid Spanish or Mexican grant or in any legal entry or covered by any lawful filing duly  made in the proper United States land office....

              Roosevelt's proclamation for the Jémez Forest Reserve totally ignored the importance of protecting the interests of "all land[s] which may have been prior to the date hereof embraced in any valid Spanish or Mexican grants." He obviously did not wish to be bothered by the fact that he was absconding with 800,000 acres of grant land—thus leaving the San Joaquín del Río de Chama, Juan Bautista Valdez and La Petaca grants with less than 5,000 total combined acres.      
              On the other hand there was a striking similarity in both proclamations. Both mentioned an identical reason for being established. Harrison's proclamation for the Pecos River Forest Reserve read:
              And whereas the public lands in the Territory of New Mexico within the limits hereinafter described are in part covered with timber, and it appears that the public good would be promoted by setting apart and reserving said lands as a public reservation.

             While Roosevelt's Jémez Proclamation stated:
              And whereas, the public lands, in the Territory of New Mexico, which are hereinafter indicated, are in part covered with timber, and it appears that the public good would be promoted by setting apart said lands as a public reservation;…
              Unfortunately, the negative political climate against the Spanish and Mexican land grantees and their heirs was not limited to presidents and secretaries of the Department of Interior. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories and a close friend and confidant of President Roosevelt, was extremely outspoken when describing the Spanish and Mexican settlers in New Mexico and Arizona whose families had refused to leave after the U.S./Mexican War. His statements on the floor of the Senate and elsewhere were highly inappropriate, and included his apparent belief that the Spanish and Mexican citizen residents of New Mexico and Arizona:
                … [W]eren't equal in intellect, resources, or population to the other states in the Union. Nor, said he, were they sufficiently American in their habits and customs.
               A trip Beveridge took to the southwest was described by Howard Roberts Lamar in his 2000 book: The Far Southwest, 1846-1912: a territorial history, as follows:

               When in the early fall of 1902, his [Senator Beverage's] committee took up the question of admission, he and a subcommittee made a whirlwind tour of the three Western territories. From the questions he asked it was clear that he liked "American" Oklahoma, but that he was acutely hostile to the idea of statehood for "frontier" Arizona and "Mexican" New Mexico.     

               [I]t appears that Beveridge's real reasons were not economic or reformist but cultural. He returned to Washington believing that the Spanish-speaking residents of the Southwest were at best second-class citizens, passive, pliant, and uneducated. Beveridge and his supporters were to argue for the next eight years that the Spanish-Americans were not at home with United States law, its court and school systems, or even with the English  language.
              In an article in the New York Times of December 6, 1902, it was stated that:
             WASHINGTON, Dec. 5. Senator Beveridge is preparing an exhaustive report on the Statehood bill to present to the Senate before next Wednesday, when it will be taken up as unfinished business and considered   until voted on unless Senator Quay is sidetracked by Senator Hale and the other parliamentarians of the Senate who are opposed to admitting the three Territories of New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma.
             As to Arizona and New Mexico, it will be urged by the committee who visited the Territories that in parts of both the native American citizen  sometimes feels that he is in a foreign country. Spanish is spoken and in  some places public business is conducted in Spanish. The sub-committee that went out there recently found Justices of the Peace that tried cases in court in Spanish and spoke no English.
             Senator Beveridge's dislike for the Spanish and Mexican settlers was so pronounced that he succeeded in convincing Roosevelt to hold back New Mexico and Arizona's statehood for nearly ten years. Likewise, the use of the term "native American" as used above, is quite telling. The land grant settlers and their heirs had been United States citizens since 1849—for over fifty years by the time the settlers arriving from the east were being referred to by Beveridge and his cohorts as "native" Americans. One wonders how many generations an ethnic group of citizens would have had to live in the United States before Senator Beveridge and his colleagues in the Senate would have been willing to recognize them as "native" Americans.

             To show how close New Mexico and Arizona became to being granted statehood and the extreme to which Senator Beveridge was willing to go to deny them statehood once he realized that there was enough support in his committee to send the bill to the full senate; and realized further that there was a sufficient number of votes in the full senate to grant them statehood, we need return to Lamar's, The Far Southwest:
              [Senator] Beveridge was not to be defeated. After mobilizing many other senators and using filibustering techniques, he resorted to an unexpected device. For reasons of courtesy no vote could take place without his presence as chairman of the Territorial Committee. At the crucial moment he hid on the third floor of Gifford Pinchot's home for a week and the time passed when a territorial bill could be considered in 1903.
              Having discussed the 1887 Dawes Act and the 1891 Court of Private Land Claims and Forest Reserve Acts, it is time to turn our attention to the GAO's 2004 Report (GAO-04-59) which was titled: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Findings and Possible Options Regarding Longstanding Community Land Grant Claims in New Mexico, in order to draw a comparison of the government's treatment of the Indians and their reservations vis-à-vis the land grant settlers who had been living on their land for generations. In doing so, I am in no way suggesting that either group received preferential treatment over the other—only raising the issue to show that in each case Congress was intentionally discriminating against the group being addressed.

               In the case of the Court of Private Land Claims Act, the settlers were not allotted land their ancestors had settled upon decades earlier. In fact, before Roosevelt proclaimed the Jémez Forest Reserve, the government had physically removed all evidence of the existence of the San Joaquín del Río de Chama, Juan Bautista Valdez and La Petaca Grants from a number of its official maps.

               One of the more interesting, yet alarming, facts about the GAO Report was the extent to which the GAO was willing to go to conceal Congress' specific demand that the Court of Private Land Claims protect the property rights of three specific groups of individuals.

               Section 12 of the GAO's Appendix VII, which was titled: Excerpts from the 1891 Act Establishing the Court of Private Land Claims, and which appears at page 186 of its report, read as follows:

               Sec. 12. That all claims mentioned in section six of this act which are by the provisions of this act authorized to be prosecuted shall, at the end of two years from the taking effect of this act, if no petition in respect to the same shall have then been filed as herein before provided, be deemed and taken, in all courts and elsewhere, to be abandoned and shall be forever barred…. [Note the GAO’s use of a four dot ellipse]

               Section 12 of the original act did not end with the words "and shall be forever barred," as implied by the GAO's use of a four dot ellipse. The paragraph, as enacted, read in pertinent part as follows:
               Sec. 12. That all claims mentioned in section six of this act which are by the provisions of this act authorized to be prosecuted shall, at the end of two years from the taking effect of this act, if no petition in respect to the same shall have then been filed as herein before provided, be deemed and taken, in all courts and elsewhere, to be abandoned and shall be forever barred and shall be forever barred: Provided, that in any case where it shall come to the knowledge of the court that minors, married women, or persons non compos mentis are interested in any land claim or matter brought before  the court it shall be its duty to appoint a guardian ad litem for such persons      under disability and require a petition to be filed in their behalf, as in other    cases, and if necessary to appoint counsel for the protection of their rights….

              The portion of the sentence which the GAO very conveniently left out, turned out to be one of the most important, most significant, provisions of the law as it clearly directed the Court, at least so far as children, married women and persons non compos mentis were concerned, to protect their property rights, even to the extent of directing the appointment of guardians for them.

              The question that begs consideration is: why would—why did—the GAO ignore the statutory demand, skirt the failure of the CPLC to comply with the significant  statutory  requirement that it protect the property interests of minor children, married women and persons non compos mentis . Was it because, as I believe, the GAO upon arriving at the realization that the Court had intentionally ignored the statutory requirement that it protect the rights of the minors, married women and persons non compos mentis intentionally attempted to cover-up the court’s refusal to comply with the language of the statute by replacing the colon in the act with a four dot ellipse to provide cover for the Court’s having ignored its mandate.

             What the GAO did was not an accident or oversight—it was an intentional alteration of the language of an Act of Congress.

             Unfortunately, Sec. 12 was not the only section of the Court of Private Land Claims Act that the GAO ignored. The following is another example of the CPLC’s having failed to abide by the clear language of the statute:

              Section 8….It shall be lawful for and the duty of the head of the Department of Justice, whenever in his opinion the public interest or the rights of any claimant shall require it, to cause the attorney of the United States in said court to file in said court a petition against the holder or possessor of any claim or land in any of the States or Territories mentioned in this act who shall not have voluntarily come in under the provisions of this act, stating in substance that the title of such holder or possessor is open to question, or stating in substance that the boundaries of any such land, the claimant or possessor to or of which has not brought the matter into court, are open to question, and praying that the title to any such land, or the boundaries thereof, if the title be admitted be settled and adjudicated; and thereupon the court shall, on such notice to such claimant or possessor as it shall deem reasonable, proceed to hear, try, and determine the questions stated in such petition or arising in the matter, and determine the matter according to law, justice, and the provisions of this act, but subject to all lawful rights adverse to such claimant or possessor, as between such claimant and possessor and any other claimant or possessor, and subject in this respect to all the provisions of this section applicable thereto.

             Congress was demanding that the United States Department of Justice, the United States Attorney, and the justices of the Court of Private Land Claims protect the rights of those Spanish, Mexican and Pueblo Indian grantees and heirs who had failed to claim their interest under the provisions of the act, yet the CPLC took it upon itself to ignore that mandate.

             Congress, in the language of the Dawes Act, had addressed the property interests of Indians who failed to come forward with their claims at the time the government was withdrawing communal land and establishing individual allotments, differently. Section 1 of the Dawes Act had stated:

             That if any one entitled to an allotment shall fail to make a selection within four years after the President shall direct that allotments may be made on a particular reservation, the Secretary of the Interior may direct the agent of such tribe or band, if such there be, and if there be no agent, then a special agent appointed for that purpose, to make a selection for such Indian, which selection shall be allotted as in cases where selections are made by the Indians …

           
A comparison of these two sections clearly establishes that Congress, in dealing with the Indians on their Reservations and the Spanish and Mexican Grantees and their heirs on their Land Grants, intentionally treated them unequally—not to mention that both groups were being treated different than the "native" Americans arriving from the east.

          The information provided here is but an embryonic snapshot of our government's maltreatment of its Indian, Spanish and Mexican citizens property rights over the past thirteen decades. Since the passage of the Dawes, Court of Private Land Claims and Forest Reserve Acts, other than the establishment of an Indian Claims Commission to allow Indian Tribes to file claims against the United States, not a whimper has been heard from the federal and state governments regarding the continuing adverse effects of the maltreatment discussed above.

          In considering whether it is too early or too late to attempt to correct this century of maltreatment and disregard for a significant portion of our population Congress can no longer afford to ignore recent census data. Man's inhumanity to man will not survive as the order of the day in the future.

       PRESIDENTIAL EXECUTIVE ORDER RESERVATIONS

          Presidential executive order reservations have existed since the 1850’s. The only important requirement for the establishment of an executive order reservation has been that it must be approved congress. Hundreds have been granted over the decades, including a number right here in New Mexico. 
          One of the earliest executive order reservation histories serves well to establish the politics of the establishment of executive order reservations. In the late 1800’s President U.S. Grant established two reservations in the San Diego of Southern California. He granted the two tribes approximately 90,000 acres. The “native” settlers arriving from the east began to complain immediately that it was not fair to give the tribes the 90,000 acres as it denied the “natives” the opportunity to have the land.

           As one might expect, President Grant abruptly cancelled the two executive orders in order to satisfy the “natives.” Is this possibly the genesis of the term “Indian giver?”

           However, it appears from a continued review of the facts, President Grant had another change of heart and again issued executive orders, this time to the two tribes he had originally granted the reservations and a number of other tribes in the area, increasing the grant to over 100,000 acres. The only difference was that he changed the location of the Reservations to areas which he believed the “natives” would not find desirable. As history would have it, the “natives” continued to crowd into California and the “worthless” land previously given to the tribes was becoming more and more valuable to the “native” Americans.

           By this time, U. S. Grant was no longer president so the onus of correcting the problem fell upon Rutherford B. Hayes to once again cancel the Reservations, which he did, by withdrawing the 90,000 acres which had initially been established by President Grant.

           For those of you who find this discussion of “giving” and “ungiving” of land by Executive Order Reservations to be more than just an unnecessary digression from the focus of this paper let me place it in context as it relates to the State of New Mexico.

           In order to do so, we must review the history of the Mescalero and Jicarilla Apache Reservations and the Navajo Nation and how they were established. Of the three reservations, Jicarilla Apache Reservation was the only one to have been granted land by either Spain or Mexico.  

          Mexico granted the Jicarilla’s approximately 1,000,000 acres “east of Taos”  which later became known as the Maxwell Land Grant.

            In the early 1870’s the U.S. Government tried to force the Jicarilla’s to settle at Fort Stanton, but failed to move them. In 1874 the government then granted them approximately 576,000 acres near Tierra Amarilla. This reservation lasted for four years until Congress passed an act forcing them off the land. Once they refused to leave their reservation their annuities were canceled.

          Then in 1880 the act of 1878 was repealed the Jicarilla’s were granted a new reservation east of the one granted in 1874. Three years later they were again forced to move to Fort Stanton. In February 1887 an Executive Order Reservation was once again established for them near Tierra Amarilla granting them in excess of 400,000 acres and in 1908 they were granted an additional 500,000 acres south of their then existing grant. All of this was taking place while the Court of Private Land Claims was taking approximately 99% of the land from the Spanish San Joaquin del Rio de Chama and Juan Bautista Valdez Grents and the Mexican La Petaca Grant .

          Not to belabor the issue more than necessary I will only set out the Executive Orders involved with the Mescalero Apache Reservation, omitting the actual descriptions. 

          On May 23, 1873 President Grant issued an Executive Order which stated:
       Executive Mansion, May 29, 1873.
       It is hereby ordered that the tract  of  country above described be withheld from entry and settlement as public lands, and that the same be set apart as a reservation for the Mescalero Apache Indians, as recommended by the Secretary of the Interior and           Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
                                                             U. S. GRANT.

          (The description contained in this proclamation is worth reading):

          Commencing at the southwest corner of the Fort Stanton reduced military reservation, and running thence due south to a point on the hills near   the north bank of the Rio Rindoso; (sic) thence along said hills to a point above the settlements; thence across said river to a point on the opposite hills, and thence to the same line upon which we start from Fort Stanton; and thence due south to the thirty-third degree north latitude; thence to the top of the Sacramento Mountains, and along the top of said mountains to the top of the White Mountains; thence along the top of said mountains to the           headwaters of the Rio Nogal, (sic)to a point opposite the starting point, and thence to the starting point.
           So much for the Spanish and Mexican Grantees lack of ability to use clearly defined boundary markers.
          The next Executive Order, dated February 2, 1874 read as follows:
          Executive .mansion, February 2, 1874.

          In lieu of an Executive order dated the 29th of May last, setting apart certain lands in New Mexico as a reservation for the Mescalero Apaches, which Older is hereby canceled, it is hereby ordered that there be withdrawn from sale or other disposition, and set apart for the use of said Mescalero Apaches and such other Indians as tho (sic) Department may see fit to locate thereon, the tract of country in New Mexico (except so much thereof as is embraced in the Fort Stanton reduced military reservation) bounded as follows,…

                                                                           U. S. Grant
     The next Order read:
        Executive Mansion, October 20, 1875.
     In lien of executive  order dated February 2, 1874, setting apart certain lands in New Mexico as a reservation for the Mescalero Apaches, which order is hereby canceled, it is hereby ordered that there be withdrawn from sale or other disposition, and set apart for the use of said Mescalero Apaches, and such other Indians as the Department may see fit to locate thereon, the tract of country in New Mexico (except so much thereof as is embraced in the Fort Stanton reduced military reservation) bounded as follows:…
                                                                          U.S. Grant
     Then:
     EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 19, 1882.
     In Lieu of executive order dated October 20, 1875, setting apart certain lands in New Mexico as a reservation for the Mescalero Apaches, which order is hereby canceled, it is  hereby ordered that there be withdrawn from sale or other disposition, and    set apart for the use of the said Mescalero Apaches and such other Indians as the Department may see fit to locate thereon, the tract of country in New Mexico bounded as follows:…
                                                                     Chester A. Arthur
    And finally,
    Executive Mansion, March 24, 1883.
    In lieu of executive order dated May 19, 1832, setting apart certain lands in New Mexico as a reservation for the Mescalero Apaches, which order is hereby canceled, it is hereby ordered that there be withdrawn from sale or other disposition and setapart for the use of the said Mescalero Apaches and such other Indians as the     Secretary of the Interior may see fit to locate thereon, the tract of country in New Mexico bounded as follows:…
                                                                     Chester A. Arthur
   The Navajo Nation is an example of the flexibility in adding to and taking land from executive Order Reservations. It was made up of numerous executive order increases to the original Reservation and today the total of the various increases its total exceeds 15,000,000 acres. It received executive order increases in  acreage in the years: 1868, 1878, 1880, 1882, 1884, 1886, 1900, 1901, 1905, 1907, 1913, 1918, 1930 and 1934. 
CONCLUSION
      Once further research on the issues raised herein has been completed, a course of action to correct the discriminatory taking of land from the Indian Tribes and Spanish and Mexican Land Grants must be considered. My research had led me to the conclusion that there are really only two viable courses of action which offer any hope for a fair and just resolution.

     The first, is to use the mechanism used since 1850, to seek presidential Executive Order Reservations and Grants to begin the process of returning the settlements where the Grantees lived as a show of good faith. These reservations and Grants would require congressional approval and unfortunately be subject to cancellation. For that reason it would be essential that patents issue immediately upon congressional approval. 

     An additional step would be to also return to the Grants a significant portion of those lands which had been granted by Spain and Mexico for their perpetual use of the heirs of the grantees.

    The other approach would be to request Congress to extend the life and the authority of the Indian Claims Commission. This should not even be considered however unless and until Congress establishes its willingness to expand the jurisdiction of the Commission to the heirs of the Spanish and Mexican Land Grants so that they might finally be allowed the opportunity to challenge the government's taking of millions of acres of their Treaty protected rights.

                                                                      Mike Scarborough

                                                                    

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