OPA

The Government has extended for another five years the trust restrictions on allotted Indian lands, scheduled to expire in calendar year 1962, the Department of the Interior reported today.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior John A. Carver, Jr., said the action underscores the Department's policy of taking all precautions against prematurely ending Federal trust protection of the property of individual Indians.

The General Allotment Act of February 8, 1887, authorized trust restricted allotments of land for individuals both on reservations and on the public domain. Homesteads for Indians off reservations, similarly restricted, also were authorized by an Act of February 28, 1891.

The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act extended trust restrictions over lands of Indians who accepted the Act's provisions. Tribes and groups not so covered--so called "unorganized" Indians--have had their trust protection extended for varying periods. Without the extension order announced today, a trust protection over several such groups would expire automatically during 1962.

Trust restrictions on allotted Indian lands, scheduled to expire in calendar year 1959, have been extended for an additional five years, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today.

The order reverses a custom, started in 1951, of limiting such extensions to a maximum of only one year. In 1951, the then Acting Secretary was considering terminating trust status on individual Indian lands on a year-by-year basis. Each trust case would be subject to review every year.

Secretary Seaton said the new order reemphasizes the Department’s recently reiterated policy of taking all precautions against ending Federal supervision over Indians before they are competent to end their status as Federal wards.

Last September 18 Secretary Seaton announced his position: “No Indian Tribe or group should end its relationship with the Federal Government unless such tribe or group has clearly demonstrated, first, that it understands the plan under which such a program would go forward and, second, that the tribe or group affected concurs in and supports the plan proposed. “He said it was "unthinkable to me as your Secretary of the Interior, that consideration would be given to forcing upon an Indian Tribe a so-called termination plan which did not have the understanding and acceptance of a clear majority of the members affected.”

“The General Allotment Act of February 8, 1887, authorized allotments of land for individuals both on reservations and on the public domain.

Homesteads for Indians off-reservations were also authorized by an Act of February 28, 1891.

The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act extended trust restrictions over lands of 1ndianswho accepted the Act’s provisions. Tribes and groups which were not so covered-so-called "unorganized" Indians--have had their trust protection extended for varying periods, until the 1951 decision established the one-year rule.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs recently recommended the longer extensions. The Bureau said it did not add up the thousands of acres covered by the new order, but that the acreage was considereb1e.

Grave moral issues would be raised by last-minute attempts now to disturb Navajo Indian title to small "islands” of former public lands in Utah within the tribal reservation boundaries, the Department of the Interior warned today.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst presented the Department’s views in letters to Senator Frank E. Moss, and Representative David S. King, both of Utah.

In the closing days of the last Congress, legislation was enacted making the tracts part of the reservation. In November, primarily on the basis of this new law, the Department rejected numerous offers for oil and gas leases on these isolated tracts.

The disputed lands are in San Juan County, Utah. They are near the McCracken Mesa Area which will be added to the reservation in exchange for lands the tribe is surrendering to permit construction of Glen Canyon Dam, key feature of the billion dollar Upper Colorado River Storage Project.

In December, then Senator-elect Moss and Congressman-elect King had complained that removal of the lands from public status was unfair to certain oil and gas lease applicants.

Assistant Secretary Ernst wrote them today that the reasons for excluding the islands from the reservation back in 1884, 1905, and 1933 "have long since lost all validity.”

It was the existence of those old land claims, now dead, that prevented the public lands from being included in the reservation decades ago, he emphasized.

For many years the tribe has had free and unrestricted use of the surface of the technically public lands, which are not set apart from the reservation lands that surround them.

Assistant Secretary Ernst wrote that only friction and animosity could result from suddenly treating them now as public lands, using only the barest technicality as an excuse. The Department's stand is that it is only right and fair that the Indians’ rights should be fully protected.

The Department understands the legislation as enacted included a package agreement between the tribe and State of Utah, Assistant Secretary Ernst wrote. This agreement added the public lands to the reservation as well as giving Utah special lieu selection rights for State school lands--not usually granted to other States. The Department regards the Tribal-State agreement as equitable, and therefore did not object to its enactment by the Congress, Mr. Ernst said.

Clear title is now vested in the tribe. Since Congress has so decided, wrote Assistant Secretary Ernst, "any further legislation modifying the present status of the lands would be a taking of property from the tribe for which compensation would be required.”

The legislation cleared the way for construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, he stressed. He contrasted this quickly settled acquisition of Indian lands with the long-drawn-out proceedings in obtaining Crow Indian tribal lands in Montana for the Yellowtail Project. For 14 years, dispute over payments for Crow land delayed that program.

The Department said the applicants whose oil and gas offers were rejected at no time had any guarantee the lands would be open to leasing. Since the tracts had public land status purely because of questionable technicalities, it is extremely doubtful leases would have been granted by the Department even if Congress had not added the lands to the reservation. A copy of the letter is attached.

Dear Mr. King:

I am glad to respond to your letter of December 9 relative to the provisions of Section 1(d) of Public Law 85-868 (the so-called Navajo Exchange Act) having to do with confirmation, subject to valid existing rights, of the Tribal title to all public lands within the boundaries of the Navajo Reservation.

As your letter notes, the effect of this provision is to preclude further consideration of the oil and gas lease applications which were dealt with in the decision of the Director of the Bureau of Land Management dated November 7, approved November 17, in Superior Oil Co. et al., Utah 016385. This was the holding in that decision.

It should be emphasized that while P. L. 85-868 is commonly referred to as the Navajo Exchange Act, the legislation is not limited to a simple exchange of 53,000 acres of public lands, exclusive of minerals, for 53,000 acres of Indian land exclusive of minerals. The legislation represents a package arrangement touching upon many originally diverse views and interests to meet a unique problem. The legislation is designed to lessen the friction between the Indians and the non-Indians in the area, to acquire for the Federal Government the lands that are needed for the Glen Canyon project without a large expenditure of Federal funds for their purchase, to avoid what in the case of other Federal reservoir projects have been years of delay occasioned by the effect of such projects upon Indian lands, and to deal fairly with the Indians, with the State, and with the local citizens of the area. A legislative undertaking of this sort necessarily presents a delicate matter requiring the balancing and adjusting of numerous interests and equities.

Turning specifically to the provisions of Section 1(d) confirming Tribal title to public lands within the boundaries of the reservation, this provision was one of two involving the State of Utah as well as the Navajo Tribe that were recommended by the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs when it reported the bill.

The other amendment in that category comprises Section 3 of the legislation as enacted. Section 3 authorizes the State of Utah to exchange State-owned school sections located within the area to be transferred to the Navajo Tribe for lands located outside that area. Neither provision was included in the draft legislation as originally prepared in and proposed by this Department. The state of Utah sought the provisions of Section 3. To this provision the Tribe was at first opposed and negotiations then ensued between the state and the Tribe. In these negotiations, we understand, the Tribe proposed what is now that part of Section 1(d) with which your letter deals. It is our further understanding that both of these provisions were then agreed to between representatives of the State and of the Tribe as a package compromise of the issues in disagreement between them and that neither party would have agreed to the amendment desired by the other without inclusion of both amendments.

While this Department did not participate in the discussions between the State and the Tribe, we concurred in the amendments that were made to the bill; we so advised both the Senate and the House Committees; and, all things considered we regard the package arrangement as fair and equitable. The provision with respect to the lands within the reservation was a~ above indicated a part of the compromise which we understood the State representatives and the Tribe agreed to when working out the solution to the school land problem raised by the State, and it was intended to resolve an ambiguous situation with respect to lands within the Indian Reservation.

While it may well be that absent the provisions of Section 1(d) concerning which you write, the State of Utah, under the Mineral Leasing Act, would receive returns in the form of a 37 1/2 percent share of any oil and gas lease revenues accruing, it is equally true that the asserted claims were the subject of vigorous contest and it is by no means clear that such claims would, in the final analysis, have been sustained.

Moreover, the elimination of obstacles potentially standing in the way of early construction of Glen Canyon Darn, the key to the development of the Colorado River Storage Project with all of the potential that such development means to the State of Utah and to the other States of the Upper Colorado River Basin, is a not inconsiderable factor to be taken into account when appraising the total effects of Public Law 85-868. In this connection, one has only to consider the fate that befell the Yellowtail project in the State of Montana to appreciate what Public Law 85-868 has meant in the terms of giving a green light to continued construction of the Glen Canyon Unit. Yellowtail was authorized by the Congress in 1944. The damsite and a third of the reservoir are located on the Crow Indian Reservation. Only in the last session of Congress was the 14-year delay occasioned by a dispute over the compensation payable to the Crow Indians for the Tribal lands involved resolved to the point where that issue no longer is a bar to initiation of construction.

Finally, any proposal now to disturb the status of the lands within the exterior boundaries of the reservation as confirmed by Section l(d) raises what in our view are serious moral issues. The reasons for the exclusion of the acreages involved at the time of the Executive Orders of 1884 and 1905 and of the enactment of the Act of March 1, 1933, have long since lost all validity. This is recognized by the language included in Section 1(d) which refers to those rights as having been "since relinquished, extinguished, or otherwise terminated." Moreover, the Tribe has for many years had the actual utilization of the surface of these lands undistinguishable from lands within the exterior boundaries of the reservation which were without question Tribal lands. In these circumstances, to retain these lands, upon the barest of technicalities, as continuing enclaves of public lands within the reservation, when they would not have been excluded from the reservation in the first place except for the existence of claims long since sterile, could serve no purpose other than to act as a continuing source of friction and animosity between Indian and non-Indian. These considerations are entirely aside from the fact that Section 1(d) in any event now having vested clear title in the Tribe, any further legislative action modifying the present status of the lands would be a taking of property from the Tribe for which compensation would be required.

Sincerely yours,

(Sgd) Roger Ernst

Under a reappraisal ordered by Congress, lands belonging to the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon have now been appraised as having a realization value of $90, 791,123, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The new appraisal total figures out to about $44,000 for each of the 1,659 withdrawing tribal members, and also includes realization values of land that will be administered for the non-withdrawing members.

In a congressional enactment of last August, which required the reappraisal, the “realization value" of the tribal property was defined as "the fair market value of the forest and marshlands as if they had been offered for sale on a competitive market without limitation on use during the interval between the adjournment of the 85th Congress" and the final date for termination of Federal trusteeship of the Klamath properties, which is August 13, 1961.

The $90,791,123 figure was arrived at by adding to the realization values of the forest and marshlands the appraised values of grazing and farm units and other miscellaneous parcels.

In February 1958, the properties of the tribe, including cash assets, were appraised at $119,758 ,029. Since then, however, cash distributions have been made which amount to more than $1,000 for each tribal member.

Under terms of the law the review was made by three appraisal firms. They are Hammon, Jensen and Wallen, Oakland, California; Bigley and Feiss, Eugene, Oregon, and Marshall and Stevens, Los Angeles, California. The new figure is an average of their computations.

Since the original appraisal and the recomputation, timber market prices for ponderosa pine dropped about 15 percent. That contributed to the decrease in appraised value. Moreover, all three firms participating in the reappraisal had lower final totals than the original estimate by Western Timber Services, Arcata, California.

Another factor in the appraisal decrease was the fact that cash distributions had cut into the tribe’s cash assets since the original appraisal.

The appraisal covered 694,000 acres of forest land, 128,000 acres of open range, 23,421 acres of marsh, 1,245 acres of farmland and 14,524 acres of other miscellaneous types.

The United States National Bank of Portland, Oregon, has been selected as trustee to manage the property of the 474 remaining members of the Klamath Indian Tribe under the provisions of Public Law 587 of the 83d Congress, as amended, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The property to be managed comprises 144,960 acres. The major portion--some 34,000 acres--is forest land and has 971,000,000 beard-feet of ponderosa pine and mixed species. It will be managed under a plan previously approved by the Department and in accordance with sustained-yield principles.

In addition to the timberland, the residual tribal estate includes nearly 8,000 acres of marshland and 675 acres of farmland. The remainder is classified as open range.

Another Oregon bank also submitted a proposal to the Department to serve as trustee for the tribal property. However, the United states National Bank was chosen since its offer involved lower service fees to be paid by the tribe for the same service.

Bonus bids running as high as $5,505.55 per acre have been received for oil and gas leases on lands of the Navajo Indian Tribe in Utah and New Mexico which brought tribally rejected bids of only $257 an acre just 13 months ago, the Department of the Interior announced today.

These were part of the results of a January 13 bid opening at Window Rock, Arizona, involving 36 Navajo tracts with a total of 72,370 acres. The total of the high bids received was $3,603,927.54.

Nearly half of this was bid on one group of four tracts totaling 640 acres. Two of the tracts brought bids of $511.75 per acre each in contrast with bids of o.pl05 per acre on one and $257 per acre on the other in December 1957. Bids on a third tract were $4,555 per acre as compared with $318.75 and on the fourth they were $5,505.55 in contrast with $257.

On the 32 other tracts the highest bid was $178.91 per acre and the average was $25.62 per acre.

Over the past 10 years the total income received by the Navajo Tribe and individual Navajo landowners from oil and gas leases on their lands has been more than $90,000,000. Of this amount, more than $59,000,000 represents bonuses received by the tribe in the past two and a half years prior to the January 13 sale.

Both educational and economic opportunities for Indian people were significantly increased by Federal Government action in fiscal year 1958, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton said in the Department's annual report released today.

One of the most important developments, the Bureau of Indian Affairs section 'f the annual report points out, was the launching of a new vocational training program designed to improve the job skills and earning capacity of adult Indians. During the year the Bureau reviewed and approved for purposes of the program 165 occupational courses in 65 trade or vocational schools throughout the country and 376 adult Indians were enrolled in these courses. An additional 325 applications from potential Indian trainees were on file and awaiting action at the end of the fiscal year.

Shorter-term training for specific jobs was also provided during the year for 168 Indians in industrial plants near the reservations under contracts between the Bureau and the employing companies.

Another major development was the further expansion of the adult education program which the Bureau initiated on five reservations in 1956 for the benefit of Indians who missed the advantages of schooling in their youth. By the end of the fiscal year 1958 courses of this kind were being regularly given at 72 locations on Indian reservations in the United States and among the native villages of Alaska.

Enrollment of Indian children of regular school age increased by over three recent as compared to the preceding year and reached a record high of 130,000. the total, 61 percent were enrolled in public schools, 30 percent in Federal schools operated by the Bureau, and 9 percent in mission or private schools. During the year the Bureau operated 80 boarding schools and 214 day schools including 23 trailer schools on the Navajo Reservation and 10 instructional aid school’s conducted without professional teachers in the remoter localities of Alaska. Classes were conducted for student patients in three Public Health Service Indian hospitals. Dormitory facilities were furnished by the Bureau for 2,900 Indian students who attended public schools in communities bordering the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

For the benefit of Indians seeking jobs away from the reservations, the Bureau continued providing financial help and guidance in community adjustment. Offices for this purpose were maintained in Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio; Chicago, Joliet and Waukegan, Illinois; Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, California; Denver, Colorado; St. Louis, Missouri; and Dallas, Texas. At the end of the year the Joliet and Waukegan offices were closed and merged with the office in Chicago. Help in moving was provided during the year to 5,728 Indians. This included 4,331 individuals in 976 family units, 1,023 unmarried men, and 374 single women.

Income to Indian tribal groups and individual Indians from the leasing of their lands for oil and gas development dropped considerably from the record-breaking figure of more than $72,000,000 for 1957 but still reached the second- highest level in history at $55,210,467. Of this amount, more than $28,000,000 represented bonuses in a single lease sale involving lands in the Four Corner portion of the Navajo Reservation.

On the Klamath Reservation in Oregon several important steps were taken leading toward the eventual termination of Federal trust supervision in accordance with a 1954 congressional enactment. An appraisal of the tribal property was completed. Slightly over three-fourths of the tribal members elected to withdraw and receive cash payments for their individual shares of the assets. A management plan for the residual tribal estate was drawn up. At the very end of the fiscal year a division of the property between the remaining and withdrawing members was completed.

Award of a $53,878 contract for flood control work on the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract covers construction of 32 earth-filled flood control structures and the placement of about 3,000 linear feet of metallic pipe of varying diameters.

The structures, when completed, will prevent and minimize flood damage to Indian homes, roads, farms and rangelands on the Papago Reservation. In addition, the flood waters thus contained will be provided for beneficial consumption by livestock and wildlife.

Don Hastings of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was awarded the contract. Nine higher bids, ranging from $58,800 to $319,690, were received.

Completion of the final membership roll of the Wyandotte Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, following the disposition of all appeals, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The preliminary membership roll, published in the Federal Register April 5, 1957, included 1,159 individuals. The net result of additions and subtractions made as a consequence of appeals to the Secretary of the Interior is a final roll of 1,154 names.

All persons on the final roll, which will be published in the Federal Register shortly, are entitled to an equitable share in the tribal property, including the cemetery owned by the tribe in Kansas City, Kansas.

Under a 1956 congressional law, Federal trusteeship of the Wyandotte property is to be ended by next August 1. Before that time members on the final roll will decide whether the property should be sold and the proceeds distributed or whether it should be transferred to a tribally organized corporation or a tribally selected trustee.

The Department of the Interior today announced a proposed revision of Federal regulations to remove restrictions against road construction that have applied for more than 20 years on 2,935,000 acres of the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and Utah.

The acreage affected is in three parts of the reservation--Painted Desert, Rainbow Bridge, and Black Mesa--which were designated as "roadless areas" by administrative action of the Department, in 1937, without consulting the Indians. All three areas consist not of Federal land but of tribally owned property held in trust by the United States.

The proposed removal of the areas from the roadless category is in line with the wishes of the Navajo Tribal Council which has pointed out that 922 families with 3,600 school-age children live in the three areas and need better roads for educational and health protection purposes. Mining activity is already intense throughout much of the affected acreage.

Interested parties may submit their comments to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington 25, D. C., within 30 days after publication of the proposed revision in the Federal Register.