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Reporter's Statement of the Case

423), and June 18, 1934 (48 Stat., 979), made a part hereof by reference, provides in part:

That jurisdiction be, and is hereby, conferred upon the Court of Claims, with right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States by either party as in other cases, notwithstanding the lapse of time or statutes of limitations, to hear, examine, and adjudicate and render judgment in any and all legal and equitable claims arising under or growing out of the Act of January 14, 1889 (25 Stat. L. 642), or arising under or growing out of any subsequent Act of Congress in relation to Indian Affairs which said Chippewa Indians of Minnesota may have against the United States, which claims have not heretofore been determined and adjudicated on their merits by the Court of Claims or the Supreme Court of the United States. In any such suit or suits the plaintiffs, the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, shall be considered as including and representing all those entitled to share in the final distribution of the permanent fund provided for by section 7 of the Act of January 14, 1889 (25 Stat. L. 642), and the agreement entered into thereunder:

SEC. 2. Any and all claims against the United States within the purview of this Act shall be forever barred unless suit or suits be instituted or petition filed as herein provided in the Court of Claims within five years from the date of the approval of this Act, and such suit or suits shall make the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota party plaintiff and the United States party defendant. The petition shall be verified by the attorney or attorneys employed to prosecute such claim or claims under contract with said Chippewa Indians approved in accordance with existing law; and said contract shall be executed in their behalf by a committee or committees to be selected by said Chippewa Indians as hereinafter provided. Official letters, papers, documents, and records, or certified copies thereof, may be used in evidence, and the departments of the Government shall give access to the attorney or attorneys of said Chippewa Indians to such treaties, papers, correspondence, or records as they may require in the prosecution of any suit or suits instituted under this Act.

SEC. 3. In said suit or suits the court shall also hear, examine, consider, and adjudicate any claims which the United States may have against the said Chippewa Indians, and any payment or payments which may have

Reporter's Statement of the Case

been made by the United States upon any claim against the United States by said Indians shall not operate as an estoppel, but may be pleaded as an offset in such suit or suits as may gratuities, if any, paid to or expended for said Indians subsequent to January 14, 1889.

SEC. 4. If it be determined by the court that the United States, in violation of the terms and provisions of any law, treaty, or agreement as provided in section 1 hereof, has unlawfully appropriated or disposed of any money or other property belonging to the Indians, damages therefor shall be confined to the value of the money or other property at the time of such appropriation or disposal, together with interest thereon at 5 per centum per annum from the date thereof; and with reference to all claims which may be the subject matter of the suits herein authorized, the decree of the court shall be in full settlement of all damages, if any, committed by the Government of the United States and shall annul and cancel all claim, right, and title of the said Chippewa Indians in and to such money or other property.

SEC. 10. The proceeds of all amounts, if any, recovered for said Indians shall be deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the Indians decreed by said court to be entitled thereto, and shall draw interest at the rate of 5 per centum per annum from the date of the judgment or decree. The costs incurred in any suit hereunder shall be taxed against the losing party; if against the United States such costs shall be included in the amount of the judgment or decree, and if against said Indians shall be paid by the Secretary of the Treasury out of the funds standing to their credit in the Treasof the United States.

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2. Under the provisions of the original act, plaintiffs, Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, filed their petition in this case May 5, 1927; defendant filed its general traverse thereto June 14, 1927; amended petition by leave of Court was filed August 22, 1935, and defendant filed its general traverse thereto October 1, 1935.

3. Plaintiffs, the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, constitute the class designated and described in the act of January 14, 1889 (25 Stat. 642), and the agreements entered into pursuant thereto, as "all the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota," and the class authorized by the acts cited in Finding 1 hereof to maintain suits, as therein provided.

Reporter's Statement of the Case

4. The act of January 14, 1889 (25 Stat. 642), made a part hereof by reference, among other things (Sec. 1) author-ized the President to appoint three commissioners to negotiate with all the different bands or tribes of Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota for the complete cession and relinquishment in writing of all their title and interest in and to all the reservations of said Indians in the State of Minnesota, except the White Earth and Red Lake Reservations, and to all and so much of these two reservations as in the judgment of said commission was not required to make and fill the allotments required "by this and existing acts and shall not have been reserved by the commissioners for said purposes, for the purposes and upon the terms hereinafter stated." The agreements of cession were required to be approved by the President of the United States before taking effect, which approval the act declared "shall, be deemed full and ample proof of the assent of the Indians, and shall operate as a complete extinguishment of the Indian title without any other or further act or ceremony whatsoever for the purposes and upon the terms in this act provided."

5. The commission was appointed and entered into agreements with all the tribes and bands of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota ceding all the lands in suit.

6. The terms of cession, as stated in the act of January 14, 1889 (Sec. 4), required the Commissioner of the General Land Office to cause all the lands so ceded to the United States to be surveyed in the manner provided by law for the survey of public lands, and directed the Secretary of the Interior, as soon as practicable after the survey had been approved, to appoint competent and experienced examiners to personally make a careful, complete, and thorough examination of the ceded lands by forty-acre lots, for the purpose of ascertaining on which lots there was standing or growing pine timber and to classify all such lots as "pine lands" and make due entry thereof in books provided for that purpose, showing with particularity the amount and quality of all pine timber standing or growing on any lot so classified, the amount to be estimated by feet in the manner usual in estimating such timber, and submit report of their work to the

Reporter's Statement of the Case

Commissioner of the General Land Office. Thereupon the Commissioner was directed to make a list of all such "pine lands," describing each forty-acre lot separately, and opposite each such description to place the actual cash value of the lot, according to his best judgment and information, but in no event to fix the valuation of the lot at less than the value of the pine timber thereon computed at a rate of not less than $3 per thousand feet board measure. The lists so prepared were subject to approval or rejection by the Secretary of the Interior, and if approved, fixed the minimum price for which the lands could be sold. All lands so listed (Sec. 5), and the listing approved by the Secretary of the Interior, were directed to be proclaimed as in market, and each lot offered for sale separately, and after advertisement as required by said act, sold at public auction to the highest bidder for cash at not less than its appraised value.

All lands not classified as "pine lands" were (Sec. 6) directed to be classified as "agricultural lands” and disposed of under the homestead laws at $1.25 per acre.

The net proceeds (Sec. 7) received from all the ceded lands were directed to be placed "in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of all the Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota as a permanent fund," to draw interest at the rate of five per centum per annum, payable annually for the period of fifty years, three-fourths of said interest to be annually paid to the Indians in cash and onefourth to be expended for their education. At the expiration of the fifty year period the permanent fund was directed to be "divided and paid to all of said Chippewa Indians and their issue then living, in cash, in equal shares."

7. The act of June 27, 1902 (32 Stat. 400), made a part hereof by reference, recited in its text that sections 4, 5 and 7 of the act of January 14, 1889, were amended to read as therein provided. The amendments to sections 4 and 7 are not here material. Section 5 was amended in the following respects: The pine timber was directed to be sold separate from the land; the Secretary was authorized, after advertisement, to receive bids for the merchantable pine timber on not exceeding ten sections in any one bid; all sales were to be made upon separate sealed bids for the timber on each

Reporter's Statement of the Case

lot; no sale was to be approved for less than the minimum price of $4 per thousand feet board measure for Norway pine and $5 per thousand feet board measure for white pine; the Secretary was authorized to accept any, or reject all, bids; all timber sold was to be cut, banked, and scaled in the log according to Scribner's rules, and paid for at the sale price per thousand feet, with the following proviso:

That in cutting the timber on two hundred thousand acres of the pine lands, to be selected as soon as practicable by the Forester of the Department of Agriculture, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, on the following reservations, to wit, Chippewas of the Mississippi, Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Winnebigoshish, which said lands so selected shall be known and hereinafter described as "forestry lands," the purchaser shall be required to leave standing five per centum of the pine timber thereon for the purpose of reforestation, as hereinafter provided, said five per centum to be selected and reserved in such manner and under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Forester of the Department of Agriculture and approved by the Secretary of the Interior:

Provided further, That there shall be reserved from sale or settlement the timber and land on the islands in Cass Lake and in Leech Lake, and not less than one hundred and sixty acres at the extremity of Sugar Point, on Leech Lake, and the peninsula known as Pine Point, on which the new Leech Lake Agency is now located, which peninsula approximates seven thousand acres, and in addition thereto ten sections in area on said reservations last aforesaid, to be selected by the Forester of the Department of Agriculture, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, in lots not less than three hundred and twenty acres each in contiguous areas, and nothing herein contained shall interfere with the allotments to the Indians heretofore and hereafter made. The islands in Cass and Leech lakes and the land reserved at Sugar Point and Pine Point Peninsula shall remain as Indian land under the control of the Department of the Interior.

When the merchantable pine timber on any tract, except on the lands reserved for forestry purposes, was removed, the tract was directed to be opened to homestead entry, and disposed of at $1.25 per acre. When 95% of all the mer

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