Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1905 — CROW INDIAN LANDS. [ARTICLE]

CROW INDIAN LANDS.

In Bargaining with Uncle Bam, Chiefs Prove Masters of Finance. Awaiting the word of President Roosevelt, 1,100.000 acres of rich agricultural and grazing ground are ready for settlement under the homestead and other acts by which a citizen of the United States, although poor, can acquire an estate. The land is a part of the hunting grounds of tile Crow Indians iu southeastern Montana, which were years ago niade into a reservation for the members of the tribe. The government began negotiating with the Indians for this land in 1890, and so many delays liave thetj been that* Tt looks now as Ts it will Q next spring before the reservation will be actually thrown open Jor settlement. Iu the bargain for that part of the reservation for which they have no use the Crow Indian chiefs have shown themselves to be masters of high finance. Not for kegs of brass tacks, red blankets and barrels of rum did they barter away the lands of their fathers, as did the Atlantic coust Indians in the days when Manhattan was being settled. Pretty Engle, Two Leggings, Medicine Eagle and the other chiefs were entirely too “up to date” for that. They saw to it the government paid the tribe $1,150,000 for the surplus acreage, nnd by this one deal they made themselves the richest Indian* in the world.