Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1885 — The Indian Problem. [ARTICLE]

The Indian Problem.

From a paper by Henry King, on the Indian country, in the Century, we quote the following: “Unquestionably the first necessity of the situation is to strengthen, perfect, and make uniform the land-titles of the Territory. This can most safely and successfully be accomplished, it is believed, by allotting lands to the Indians in severalty,—at the rate, say, of qne hundred and sixty acres per head, —and giving them personal titles thereto, inalienable for a stipulated number of years; and providing for the disposal, at Government prices, of the unallotted and remaining portions of their reservations, for their benefit, to white settlers. In an allotment of this kind, twelve million two hundred and fifty thousand acres would give each Indian, male and female, adult and child, one hundred and sixty acres, leaving over two-thirds of the whole Territory to be sold on their account —enough to bring them, at a low estimate, forty million dollars, or more than five hundred dollars per capita. Such allotment and issuance of individual patents would involve, of course, the dissolution of tribal relations—another desirable step in the adjustment of the general question; and the Indian would thus be put upon an even footing with the white man as to the opportunities and advantages of personal independence. At the same time, the laws common throughout the States* for the punishment of crime and the enforcement of contracts should be extended over the Territory, and courts

established to administer them. In short, the flimsy theory of tribal sovereignty should be extirpated, the reservation system replaced by fee-simple grants in severalty, the surplus lands opened to white settlement, and the Indians placed under the restraint and Erotection of ordinary and impartial iws, with a view to making them selfreliant and self-supporting." ,