The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, read the third time, and passed.10 In the house the bill was referred to the committee on the territories;11 but it was sponsored by Mr. Valentine (then the sole member from Nebraska), though he was not a 10Ibid., p. 861. The queries of Senator Plumb and Senator Butler as to the reason why Dakota showed no interest in the proposed dismemberment of her territory are sufficiently answered, probably, in letters to the editor from Mr. Ed. A. Fry, founder of the Nebraska Pioneer, and now a resident of Yankton, under dates of September 12 and 14, and October 11, 1913. Mr. Fry said: "In regard to what we know of the 'Ponca Strip,' comprising the west part of Knox and all of Boyd, it was the child of the late Alvin Saunders while a member of the Indian and territorial committees in the U. S. senate, and was done to straighten out the Nebraska boundary to the Missouri river. I recall no opposition from Dakota Territory, but E. K. Valentine made a strenuous effort to get credit for it, and quite a controversy arose over it, in which I was a part. "Mr. [George W.] Kingsbury, who was editor of the Press and Dakotan at the time, tells me that there was no protest from South Dakota respecting the 'Ponca Strip.' The territory at that time was more interested in division than the 96,000 acres of land, and Senator Saunders was in position to aid them and did so. He says that Senator Plumb of Kansas, as the Congressional-Record at that time will show, made some inquiries in debate, but beyond this no effort was made lest opposition might be made to division. "Mr. Van Osdel says there was no contention on the part of the South Dakota delegate. As before stated, he said statehood was uppermost in the minds of the leaders. Niobrara, of course, had a desire at that time to see this territory come into Nebraska on account of the Niobrara river, that it might come under the exclusive control of the state. The Ponca treaty did not even give Nebraska the river, reading to the south bank as the line of the Ponca possession. "As to Congressman Valentine's claim of the shifting channel of the spreads out to any extent. There are occasional confined rapids after the turn in the river about five miles above. These do not shift materially. It is a remarkable river, in that it seldom, if ever, leaves its banks unless gorged by ice. It is a spring-fed stream its whole length and is probably the least affected by drouth or flood of any stream known." Dakota was not divided until 1889, when it was changed from the territorial status into the states of North Dakota and South Dakota. Therefore, the delegate to congress was from Dakota and not from South Dakota as Mr. Fry inadvertently has it. 11Ibid., pt. 2, p. 1501. |
member of the committee. The colloquy in the house was brief: Mr. Valentine. I ask unanimous consent for the present consideration of a senate bill. If the house will give me a moment for a statement of the case, I think there will be no objection. The Speaker. The Clerk will read the title of the bill. The clerk read as follows: A bill (S. No. 17) to extend the northern boundary of the State of Nebraska. Mr. Valentine. I would like to have a moment to state the object of this bill. Mr. Springer [Illinois]. I reserve points of order. Mr. Bragg [Wisconsin]. And I reserve the right to object. Mr. Valentine. Mr. Speaker, it is intended by this bill to straighten the northern boundary of the state of Nebraska. A portion of the present northern boundary is down the Keyapaha and the Niobrara Rivers. The Niobrara is a shallow sandy stream, from half a mile to a mile and a quarter in width, full of timber islands. Under the present law the northern boundary of our state down that stream is the main channel of the stream. That channel shifts with the wind. When the wind is blowing from the north or the northwest the channel is upon the southern bank of the stream. If the wind shifts to the south or southwest the channel moves from half a mile to a mile and a quarter northward around these islands. It is very necessary to have a fixed, well-defined boundary line. I will add that there is no objection to this bill on the part of the people of Dakota who are as much interested in having this line straightened as are the people of Nebraska. Mr. Dunnell [Minnesota]. Has this bill been examined by the House committee? Mr. Valentine. Yes, sir; they have had it under consideration, and allowed me to take it from the hands of the committee to bring it up at this time. The bill was read, as follows: Be it enacted, &c., That the northern boundary of the State of Nebraska shall be, and hereby is, subject to the |
provisions hereinafter contained, extended so as to include all that portion of the Territory of Dakota lying south of the forty-third parallel of north latitude and east of the Keyapaha River and west of the main channel of the Missouri River; and when the Indian title to the lands thus described shall be extinguished, the jurisdiction over said lands shall be, and hereby is, ceded to the State of Nebraska, and subject to all the conditions and limitations provided in the act of Congress admitting Nebraska into the Union; and the northern boundary of the State shall be extended to said forty-third parallel as fully and effectually as if said lands had been included in the boundaries of said State at the time of its admission to the Union, reserving to the United States the original right of soil in said lands and of disposing of the same: Provided, That this act, so far as jurisdiction is concerned, shall not take effect until the President shall, by proclamation, declare that the Indian title to said lands has been extinguished, nor shall it take effect until the State of Nebraska shall have assented to the provisions of this act; and if the State of Nebraska shall not, by an act of its Legislature, consent to the provisions of this act within two years next after the passage hereof, this act shall cease and be of no effect. Mr. Springer. How much territory is to be added to the State by this change? Mr. Valentine. About a township and a half. There being no objection, the Committee on the Territories was discharged from the further consideration of the bill; which was ordered to a third reading, read the third time, and passed.12 The process of coaching this measure followed, now and then, darksome ways. For example, Senator Saunders declared that the second bill--which was enacted--"is the same exactly that passed the senate unanimously at the last session of congress after having been thoroughly canvassed. . ." On the contrary, it was the bill as it was originally reported, without the numerous amendments 12Ibid., p. 2007. |
which were made "after having been thoroughly canvassed" on the 3d of May, 1880. The bill, with amendments, which first passed the senate and to which Senator Saunders referred has already been copied (ante, pp. 66, 67, 68).13 The bill which the senator offered the second time was as follows: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the northern boundary of the State of Nebraska shall be, and hereby is, extended so as to include all that portion of the Territory of Dakota lying south of the forty-third parallel of north latitude and east of the Keyapaha River and west of the main channel of the Missouri River; and when the Indian title to the lands thus described shall be extinguished, the jurisdiction over said lands shall be and hereby is ceded to the State of Nebraska, and the northern boundary of the State shall be, and hereby is, extended to said forty-third parallel as fully and effectually as if said lands had been included in the boundaries of said State at the time of its admission to the Union; reserving to the United States the original right of soil in said lands and of disposing of the same: Provided, That this act, so far as jurisdiction is concerned, shall not take effect until the President shall, by proclamation, declare that the Indian title to said lands has been extinguished, nor shall it take effect until the State of Nebraska shall have assented to the provisions of this act.14 The words "hereby is" occurred three times in the bill before it was amended, in 1880, by striking them out. They were stricken out in only one instance, just before final passage. Thus the senator gained two important points, to which strong objections had been made in the debate on amendments, by slipping in cards from his sleeve. 13The bill and the amendments adopted are printed on page 3644, pt. 4, V. 10, Congressional Record. 14The elimination of the amendments adopted (Congressional Record; v.13, pt. 1, pp. 860-861) from the act as it passed (U. S. Statutes at Large, v. 22, p. 35) leaves the bill as it was introduced. |
The words, "so far as jurisdiction is concerned," which were stricken out at the instance of Senator Hoar before the passage of the first bill in the senate, slipped by on final passage through Saunder's masterly mistake as to the contents of the bill. By the same misapprehension the senator got rid of the amendments, "if it [the Indian title] ever shall be extinguished"; "nor shall this act create any liability or obligation of any kind whatever on the part of the United States to extinguish said Indian title or in any way affect the title thereto"; and "and provided further, That this act shall in no way affect the right of the United States to control any military or other reservation, or any part thereof, which may now or hereafter be on said land." By leaving out the one year limit for accepting another year was gained. Thus Senator Saunders got back by indirection most of that which had been directly taken from him and, in a way, got even with the irreverent eastern senators who had so inconsiderately put and kept him on the gridiron. There is an inexplicable discrepancy between Senator Saunders' estimates of the area of the proposed transfer in 1880 and in 1882. In response to Senator Thurman's specific inquiry during the discussion of the first bill Saunders replied: "It will make somewhere probably about eighteen townships."15 To a like specific inquiry by Senator Cameron, of Wisconsin, during the debate of February 3d, 1882, Saunders replied: "There are, I think, over two townships of land, but it is in such an irregular shape that I cannot tell exactly the quantity."16 On the day the bill 15Congressional Record, v. 10, pt. 3, p. 2960. According to the census of 1880 the area of the state was 76,185 square miles, and by that of 1890 it was 76,855 square miles. The difference between these sums, 670 square miles, or 18.6 townships, is approximately the area of the transferred territory. According to the surveys, as indicated on the township plats, the total area of the addition appears to have been 406,566 acres, or 17.64 townships. 16Ibid., v. 13, pt. 1, p. 861. |
passed the house--March 17, 1882--to Mr. Springer's question, "How much territory is to be added to the state by this change?" Mr. Valentine replied: "About a township and a half."17 The correctness of the Nebraska senator's first estimate and the near agreement between his second and Valentine's estimate precludes the supposition that either was a clerical error. The original boundary line between Dakota and Nebraska followed the mid-channel of the Niobrara river, so that Nebraska acquired by the transfer only such islands as lay north of that line. The great and the near-great men who engaged in the debates alike lacked knowledge of the status or rights of the Indians in the debated territory. Senator Dawes, though chairman of the committee of Indian affairs and a general Indian godfather or philanthropist, very erroneously informed his uninformed colleagues that the bill included "just the old Ponca reservation," which was as discrepant from the truth as the information about the area of the whole tract offered by the members from Nebraska. Of the approximate total of 406,566 acres, the Ponca laid claim to only 96,000.18 The claims of neighboring Indian tribes to lands naturally overlapped one another until the authority of the United States adjusted them, more or less arbitrarily, through treaties. Until the Fort Laramie treaty of 1851, the Ponka claimed the territory bounded by a line running westerly from the mouth of Aoway river to the Black Hills; thence along the Black Hills to the source of White river; thence down the White river to the Missouri, which was their eastern boundary.19 By the same treaty, a line drawn 17Ibid., pt. 2, p. 2007. 18Report of the secretary of the interior 1881, v. 2, p. 277; ibid., 1878, pt. 1, p. 467; ibid., 1879, v. 1, p. 78. 19Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Pt. 2, p. 819. |
southwesterly from the mouth of White river (now in South Dakota not far below the city of Chamberlain) through the forks of the Platte was fixed as the eastern boundary of Sioux territory and so the western boundary of Ponka claims.20 By the treaty of March 12, 1858, the Ponka ceded to the United States all lands they owned or claimed except a tract bounded as follows: "Beginning at a point on the Niobrara river and running due north so as to intersect the Ponca River twenty-five miles from its mouth; thence from said point of intersection up and along the Ponca River twenty miles; thence due south to the Niobrara River; and thence down and along said river to the place of beginning. . ." Through a mistake in the wording of the treaty this reservation was placed farther west than the contracting parties intended; consequently, in accordance with the request of the commissioner of Indian affairs, made on the 26th of July, 1860, the commissioner of the general land office ordered that the east and west boundaries should be removed twelve miles eastward. By this change the line between ranges 8 and 9 west of the sixth principal meridian became the eastern boundary of the reservation.21 By the treaty of March 10, 1865, the Ponka ceded to the United States that part of their reservation west of the line between ranges 10 and 11 and received as consideration therefor the tract between the Ponka river and the Niobrara river east of the line between ranges 8 and 9, subsequently the western boundary of Knox county.22 The recitation in the treaty that this cession was made also "by way of rewarding them for their constant fidelity to the government and citizens thereof, and with a view of 20Ibid. 21Ibid.; Copy of treaty, U. S. Statutes at Large, v. 12, p. 997. 22Ibid., pp. 836-37; U. S. Statutes at Large, v. 14, p. 675; Report Secretary of Interior 1879, v. 1, p. 78. |
returning to the said tribe of Ponca Indians their old burying grounds and cornfields" is characteristically ironical, in view of the fact that, by an alleged mistake, the whole reservation, sacred and otherwise, was included in the great reserve assigned to the Sioux by the trouble-breeding treaty of April 29, 1868 .23 The bill of appropriations of 1876 for the Indian department contained a proviso "that the secretary of the interior may use of the foregoing amounts the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars for the removal of the Poncas to the Indian Territory, and providing them a home therein, with the consent of said band." The corresponding bill of 1877 contained an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars "for the removal and permanent location of the Poncas in the Indian territory." 24 The precedent condition of consent was omitted from the second removal measure because an agent of the department had failed, in the preceding January, to obtain it, though he resorted to intimidation to gain a nefarious end. Accordingly, in April and May of the same year, the Ponka were forced from their ancestral homes, literally "at the point of the bayonet", as asserted by Senator Edmunds and Senator Dawes.25 In 1879 sixty-five of the homesick exiles deserted from the new reservation in the Indian Territory, and by 1882 one hundred and sixty-eight of them had returned to their old reservation .26 A sense of this injustice gradually came to be comprehended, and at the second session of the 46th congress (Feb. 16, 1880) Senator 23U. S. Statutes at Large, v. 15, p. 636. 24Ibid., v. 19, pp. 192, 287. 25Report of special investigation commission, in the report of the secretary of the interior 1881, v. 2, p. 278. 26Report of Secretary of Interior 1879, v. 1, pp. 21, 17, 179; ibid., 1882, v. 2, P. 176. For extended accounts of the removal, see reports of the secretary of the interior, 1877, pp. 417, 492; 1878 p. 466; 1879, v. 1, pp. 21, 78, 179; 1880, v. 1, p. 110; 1881, v. 2, pp. 38, 186, 275; 1882, v. 2, PP. 52, 176. |
Dawes introduced a bill (s. 1298)27 for the relief of the Ponka, which was referred to the select committee to examine into the removal of the Northern Cheyenne and by it reported back favorably, when it was placed upon the calendar where it rested.28 At the 3d session of the same congress (January 28, 1881) Senator Dawes introduced a bill (s. 2113) "to establish the rights of the Ponca tribe of Indians and to settle their affairs", which was referred to the same committee.29 On the 23d of February Senator Kirkwood, on behalf of a minority of that committee, introduced a bill (s. 2215) "for the relief of the Ponca Indians."30 On the 18th of December, 1880, President Hayes appointed a commission consisting of Brigadier General George Crook, Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles, William Stickney, of the District of Columbia, and Walter Allen, of Massachusetts, "to ascertain the facts in regard to their [the Ponka's] removal and present condition, so far as is necessary to determine the question what justice and humanity require should be done by the government of the United States, and report their conclusions and recommendations in the premises." The commission made a majority and a minority report on the 25th of January, 1881, which were referred to the committee named above. Both reports represented that the Ponka bad been wrongfully removed from their old reservation and recommended that, by way of restitution, one hundred and sixty acres of land, to be selected by them from their old reservation or 27Congressional Record, v. 10, pt. 1, p. 912; ibid, pt. 4, p. 3950. The department of Indian affairs presented to congress a liberal bill for the same purpose on the 3d of February, 1879. (Report Secretary of Interior 1879, v. 1, p. 78). 28Kirkwood of Iowa; Dawes of Massachusetts; Plumb of Kansas; Bailey of Tennessee; Morgan of Alabama. (Cong. Record, v. 10, pt. 1, p. 19--2d sess. 46th Congress). 29Ibid., v. 11, pt. 2, p. 988. 30Ibid., pt. 3, p. 1965. |
from their new one in the Indian Territory, should be given to every member of the tribe and in addition thereto, that the annual appropriation of $53,000 should be continued for five years after the passage of an act allotting them lands, and that $25,000 should be appropriated for the purpose of providing farm implements, stock and seed.31 Carl Schurz, secretary of the interior, was a firm friend of the Ponka, and in his reports for 1877, 1879, and 1880, he warmly advocated that they should be reimbursed for the loss of their reservation. The Sioux gave evidence of contrition on account of their part in the cruel treatment of this defenseless little band of former kinsmen, and on the 20th of August, 1881, representatives of the Ogalala, Brulé, and Standing Rock tribes signed an agreement at Washington to relinquish enough of the old Ponka reservation to provide heads of families and males over twenty-one years of age, belonging to the Standing Bear band and residing on or near the old reservation, a section of land apiece. But the requisite signatures of three-fourths of all the adult male Sioux interested in the reservation were apparently not obtained.32 It was not until 1888 that the demand of justice to the Ponka was substantially recognized. The act of congress of April 30 of that year, which divided the great Sioux reservation into six distinct reserves, contained the following provision: "Each member of the Ponca tribe of Indians now occupying a part of the old Ponca reservation, within the limits of said great Sioux reservation, shall be entitled to allotments upon said old Ponca reservation as follows: 31Senate Documents 1880-81, v. 1, doc. 30, pp. 1-13. The proceedings of the Commission, including the testimony of representatives of the tribe, are published in the same document, beginning at page 13, and in Senate MisceIlaneous Documents, 1880-81, v. 1, document 49. 32House Executive Documents, 1881-82, v. 10, doc. 1, p. 39; ibid., 1882-83, v. 11, p. 52. |
To each head of a family, one-quarter of a section; to each single person over eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section; to each orphan child under eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section; and to each other person under eighteen years now living, one-sixteenth of a section. . . . And said Poncas shall be entitled to all other benefits under this act in the same manner and with the same conditions as if they were a part of the Sioux nation receiving rations at one of the agencies herein named." The Sioux, however, refused to ratify this provision, and so it did not become effective. A provision for the same purpose was incorporated in the act of March 2, 1889, further dividing and curtailing the Sioux reservation; and it was accepted by the Sioux according to its conditions. By this act, each head of a Ponka family then occupying a part of the old Ponka reservation was granted three hundred and twenty acres of said reservation; each single person over eighteen years of age, one-fourth of a section; each orphan child under eighteen years of age, one-fourth of a section; and each other person under eighteen years of age now living one-eighth of a section.33 Accordingly, 27,236 acres of the land in question were allotted to one hundred and sixty-eight Indians34, and thereupon, on the 23d of October, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation which declared that "the Indian title is extinguished to all lands described in said act of March 28, 1882, not allotted to the Ponca Indians. . ." In the proclamation the president reserved from entry "that tract of land now occupied by the agency and school buildings of the old Ponca agency, to-wit: the south half of the southeast quarter of section twenty-six, and the south half of the southwest quarter of section twenty-five, all in town- 33 U. S. Statutes at Large, v. 25, pp. 99, 892. 34Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1911, Interior Department, Administrative Reports, v, 2, p. 82. |
ship thirty-two north, range seven west of the sixth principal meridian." 35 The act of 1889, cited above, provided for relinquishment by the Sioux. This was the final act of the acquisition comedy, and also of the Ponka tragedy. Though the domains of the Ponka of Nebraska were greatly circumscribed by the white man's more urgent land-hunger and superior power, yet they received generous additional gifts in money and goods, and their selection of land is said to have been wise. "The Ponca Indians located at this agency are fortunate in having good land. Nearly all the land taken by these Indians is situated along the Niobrara or Running Water river and Ponca creek, and lies mostly in broad and fertile valleys, just undulating enough to have good drainage."They have received a large body of the choicest land on the reservation." 36 No longer harassed by Sioux ferocity or fear of rapine by their white fellow citizens, they are slowly increasing in numbers. Their aggregate in 1912 was three hundred.37 35U. S. Statutes at Large v. 26, p. 1560. 36Statements of the agent and of the teacher, Report of the Secretary of the Interior 1890, v. 2, pp. 146, 147. 37Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1912, Interior Department, Administrative Reports, v. 2, p. 76. |
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