Office of Indian Affairs. 
 
 Eta let in 24 (1925). 
 
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 (Excerpt from Handbook of American Indians, Bulletin 
 30, Bureau of American Ethnology.) 
 
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 A natural result of land cessions by the Indians to the United 
 States Government was the establishment of reservations for the natives. This 
 was necessary not only in order to provide them with homes and with land for 
 cultivation, hut to avoid disputes in regard to boundaries and to bring them 
 more easily under control of the Government by confining them to given limits* 
 This policy which has been followed in Canada under both French and English^ 
 control, and also to some extent by the colonies, was inaugurated by the United 
 States in 17 S 6 , It may be attributed primarily to the increase of the white 
 population and the consequent necessity of confining the aboriginal population 
 to narrower limits. This involved a very important, even radical, change in the 
 habits and customs of the Indians, and was the initiatory step toward a reliance 
 upon agricultural pursuits for subsistence* Reservations in early days, and 
 to a limited extent more recently, were formed chiefly as the result of cessions 
 of land; thus a tribe, in ceding land that it held by original occupancy, re¬ 
 served from the cession a specified and definite part thereof, and such part 
 was held under the original right of occupancy, but with the consent of the 
 Government, as it was generally expressly stated in the treaty defining the 
 bounds that the part so reserved was "allotted to" or "reserved for" the given 
 Indians, thus recognizing title in the Government. However, as time passed, 
 the method of establishing reservations varied, as is apparent from the follow¬ 
 ing return, showing the method of establishing the various reservations given 
 by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in his report for 1S90: By Executive 
 Order, ^6; by Executive Order under authority of Congress, S; by act of Congress, 
 28; by treaty, with boundaries defined or enlarged by Executive Order, 15; by 
 treaty or agreement and act of Congress, 5; by unratified treaty, 1; by treaty 
 or agreement, 51 * 
 
 The setting aside of reservations by treaty was terminated by the 
 act of March 3> 1871, which brought transactions with the Indians under the 
 immediate control of Congress and substituted simple agreements for solemn 
 treaties. By sundry subsequent laws the matter has been placed in control of 
 •the President. Reservations established by Executive order without an,act of 
 Congress were not held to be permanent before the general allotment act of 
 February 8, I 80 J, under which the tenure has been materially changed, and all 
 reservations, whether created by Executive order, by act of Congress, or by 
 treaty, are permanent* Reservations established by Executive order under 
 authority of Congress ar© those which have been authorized by acts of Congress 
 and their limits defined by Executive order, or first established by Executive 
 order and subsequently confirmed by Congress. The Indian titles which have 
 been recognized by the Government appear to have been (l) the original right 
 of occupancy, and (2) the title to their reservations, which differs in 
 
most cases from the original title in the fact that it is derived from the 
 United States, There have been some titles, and a few of them still gzig ,~ 
 which the Indian Bureau deems exceptions to this rule, ae where the reserva 
 tion was formed by restricting the original areas or where reservations ave ^ 
 been patented to tribes by the Government* Examples of the latter c ass are 
 the patents to the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek nations. In a few instances 
 the Indians purchased t£ie lands forming in whole or in part their reserva 
 The construction given to these by the Indian Bureau and the courts is - 
 they are not titles in fee simple, for they convey no power of alienation e - 
 cept to the United States, neither are they the same as the ordinary ti 
 occupancy; they are "a base, qualified, or determinable fee," with a possr ^ 
 of reversion to the United States only, “and the authorities of these na 
 may cut, sell, and. dispose of their timber, and may permit mining an ^razing 
 within the limits of their respective tracts, by their own citizens. ^ ^ fi, 
 
 of March 1, 1889, establishing a United States court in Indian Territory ^0 ^a- 
 homa), repealed all laws having the effect of preventing the live^Civi iza 
 Tribes in said Territory (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole; 
 from entering into leases or contracts with others than their own citizens lor 
 mining coal for a period not exceeding ten years. As a general rule the In ians 
 on a reservation could make no leases of land, sales of standing timber, or.. 
 grants of mining privileges or rights of way to railways without the authority 
 of Congress. On the other hand, it was obligatory upon the government to pre¬ 
 vent any intrusion, trespass, or settlement on the lands of any tribe or nation 
 of Indians unless the tribe or nation had given consent by agreement or treaty. 
 
 The idea of removing the Indians residing east of the Mississippi 
 to reservations west of that river was a policy adopted at an early date. The 
 first official notice of it appears in the act of March 26, 1804, “erecting 
 Louisiana into two territories, and providing the temporary government thereof. 1. 
 By treaty with the Choctaw in 1820 they had been assigned a new home in the 
 West, to include a considerable portion of western Arkansas, with all that part 
 of the present Oklahoma south of the South Canadian and Arkansas rivers. ^ In 
 1825 President Monroe reported to the Senate a formal "plan of colonization or 
 removal" (see Schoolcraft, III, 573,efc seq., 1853), of all tribes then residing 
 east of the Mississippi, to the same general western region. In accordance with 
 this plan the present Oklahoma, with the greater portion of what is now Kansas, 
 was soon after constituted a Territory, under the name of "Indian Territory," 
 as a permanent home for the tribes to be removed from the settled portions of 
 the United States. Most of the northern portion of the Territory was acq\iired 
 by treaty purchase from the Osages and Kansa.. A series of treaties was then 
 inaugurated by which, before the close of 1840, almost all the principal eastern 
 tribes and tribal remnants had been removed to the "Indian Territory," the five 
 important southern tribes*—Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole— 
 being guaranteed autonomy under the style of "nations." By subsequent legisla¬ 
 tion Kansas was detached from the Territory, most of the emigrant tribes within 
 the bounds of Kansas being again removed to new reservations south of the boun¬ 
 dary line. By other and later treaties lands within the same Territory were as¬ 
 signed to tho actual native tribes—Kiowa, Comanche, Wichita, Cheyenne, etc.— 
 whose claims had been entirely overlooked in the first negotiations, which con¬ 
 sidered only the Osage and Kansa along the eastern border. Other tribes were 
 brought in at various periods from Texas, Nebraska, and farther north, to which 
 were added, as prisoners of war, the Modoc of California (1873), the Nez Perces 
 of Oregon and Idaho (1878), and the Chiricahua Apache of Arizona (1889), until 
 the Indian population of the Territory comprised some forty officially recognized 
 tribes. 
 
An unoccupied district near the center, of the Territory, known as 
 Oklahoma, had become the subject of controversy with intruding white settlers, 
 and was finally thrown open to settlement in 1889. In 1890 the whole western 
 portion of Indian Territory was created into a separate Territory under the 
 name of Oklahoma.. In the meantime, under provisions of an allotment act 
 passed in 1887, agreements were being negotiated with the resident tribes for 
 the opening of the reservation to white settlement* In 1906 a similar arrange¬ 
 ment was consummated with the five autonomous tribes of the eastern section, 
 or Indian Territory—the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole— 
 togetner with the several small tribes in the northeastern corner of Indian 
 Territory* In the following year, 1907, the whole of the former Indian Terri¬ 
 tory was created into a single State under the name of Oklahoma. 
 
 According to the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the 
 number of reservations in the United States in 1908, including the nineteen 
 Spanish grants to the Pueblo Indians, was 161, aggregating 52,013,010 acres. 
 
 There are some small State reservations in Maine, New York (includ¬ 
 ing Long Island),* Virginia, and South Carolina. 
 
 Indian reservations in Canada, especially in the western part, appear 
 to have been formed for bands or minor divisions, seldom for entire tribes, and 
 the land set apart was usually a small area, sometimes not exceeding four acres, 
 due to the fact that the Indians were simply confirmed in the possession of 
 their residence tracts instead of being collected on reservations especially 
 established for such purpose. These tracts appear to have been reserved in 
 some instances in accordance with treaties, in some by special act of Parliament, 
 in some by the decision of the military council, and in others by an Indian 
 commissioner. Special names were usually given, but the reservations of each 
 province or district were numbered* The reservations in the Dominion number 
 several hundred. 
 
 (6454) 
 
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