intendent Anson Hart's report for 1852 (Commissioner's Report for 1852), Superintendent Joel Palmer's report for 1854 (Commissioner's Report for 1854), Commissioner J. W. Denver's report for 1857, Superintendent Meacham's report for 1871 (Commissioner's Report for 1871, p. 304), superintendent's report for 1872, page 361, agent at Grandronde (Commissioner's Reports for 1872, p. 367; 1873, p. 322, and for 1874, and the Commissioner's Report for 1875, p. 58).

The objection to the treaty, and the only one that appears to have been made, was on account of the provision in the second article, which authorized the Indians to retain certain small reservations within the exterior limits of the ceded country.

Commissioner Lea, in transmitting the treaty to the Secretary of the Interior, expressed doubts as to the expediency of this provision, and the Secretary, in his report transmitting it to the President, says that

It will be seen, however, that these reservations are of limited extent and in localities which will interfere but little with the future settlement of the country. They were, however, indispensable features in the treaties, because the Indians were unwilling to negotiate on any other conditions. (Ex. Doc. 39, p. 1.)

The Commissioners who negotiated the treaties state in their report dated May 14, 1857, that they had no authority to grant the reservations. (Ex. Doc. 39.) The money to be appropriated is to be in full satisfaction of these small reservations as well as the ceded land.

The Secretary of the Interior in his report dated February 12, 1902, after quoting the statement in a former report of his Department that "The fact that these Indians had some claim seems to have been recognized from an early date, and the records of the Department do not show that it has ever been satisfied or relinquished," says:

These statements apply equally to the Tillamooks proper, and the Clatsops, whose claims appear to be fully as meritorious as that of the Naalem band of Tillamooks. The Secretary says further that

In view of the facts stated and in the belief that these claims are not without merit I am not disposed to oppose an appropriation for the benefit of the Clatsops and the Tillamooks, not exceeding the sums proposed by the bills referred to (S. 1989 and 1990), provided that any sum appropriated for them, respectively, or such portion thereof as shall be found equitably due them after full and complete investigation to be made by the Secretary of the Interior shall be accepted by the Indians in full satisfaction of all demand or claims against the United States for the land described in the agreements made with them in 1851, and of any and all claims or pretended claims against the United States.

The treaty not having been ratified it is not law, and the consideration therein stipulated to be paid to the Indians is simply taken as a basis in determining what is a fair compensation to the Indians for their lands.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior, with accompanying papers, is herewith submitted and made a part of this report.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, December 30, 1903.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, by your reference of the 22d instant, for report, of S. 2853 and 2854, to provide for final settlements, respectively, with the Tillamook and Clatsop tribes of Indians, of Oregon, for lands ceded by said Indians to the United States in certain agreements between them and the Government, made in 1851, the former providing for a payment of $35,000 and the latter for $50,000.

In reply you are informed that during the first session of the Fifty-seventh Congress, similar bills were introduced in the Senate, being S. 1989 and 1990, and on February 12, 1902, the Department made a report on the same, of which a copy is herewith inclosed. This report gives a full history of the agreements and I renew the recommendations therein made, that "in the belief that these claims are not without merit, I am not disposed to oppose an appropriation for the benefit of the Clatsops and the Tillamooks, not exceeding the sums proposed by the bills referred to," provided that they accept any sum found equitably due them after a full and complete investigation in full satisfaction of all demands and claims against the United States for the lands described in the agreements made with them in 1851, and of any and all other claims or pretended claims against the United States.

Very respectfully,

E. A. HITCHCOCK, Secretary.

The CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS,
United States Senate.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
Washington, February 12, 1902.

SIR: I have the honor to be in receipt, by your reference of the 24th ultimo, for report, of S. 1989 and 1990, to provide for final settlement, respectively, with the Clatsop and Tillamook tribes of Indians, of Oregon, for lands ceded by said Indians to the United States in certain agreements between them and the Government made in 1851, the former providing for a payment of $50,000 and the latter for $35,000. Nineteen treaties with various tribes and bands on the Pacific coast were made about the same time, and all were forwarded to the Senate by the President of the United States, with message dated July 31, 1852, and the same are comprised in confidential Executive Documents, Nos. 39 to 57, both inclusive, Thirty-second Congress, first session. None of said treaties appear ever to have been ratified.

In the case of the Clatsops (Doc. No. 46) agreement was made to pay them $15,000 in annual installments of $1,500 in money and goods, and in the case of the Tillamooks (Doc. No. 48) $10,500 was to be paid in annual installments of $1,050, also in money and goods.

By act of June 7, 1897 (30 Stat., 78), $10,500 was appropriated to pay the Naalem band of Tillamooks (Doc. No. 47), being the amount prescribed in the treaty with them, and provision was made by the said act “that said Indians shall accept said sum in full of all demands or claims against the United States for the lands described in an agreement made with them dated the sixth of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-one."

In its report to the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate, dated April 4, 1896, on the claims of the last-named band, the Department took occasion to say that

"The fact that these Indians had some claim seems to have been recognized from an early date, and the records of the Department do not show that it has ever been satisfied or relinquished.”

These statements apply equally to the Tillamooks proper and the Clatsops, whose claims appear to be fully as meritorious as that of the Naalem band of Tillamooks. In a report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated July 7, 1899, on the payment to the Naalem band, Agent T. J. Buford, of the Grande Ronde Agency, Oreg., said:

"I still regard the Naalems, the Clatsops, and the Tillamooks as one family, only separated in times past by an imaginary line. They have all been loyal to the whites, and have all met the same fate. Their lands have been taken from them without compensation. If the Naalems are entitled to a pittance from the Government (and they were), so in like measure are the Tillamooks and Clatsops entitled to consideration."

Many of the tribes or bands with whom treaties were made in 1851, herein before alluded to, seem to have been broken up and some have accepted benefits and protection from the Government and gone into agencies, thereby relinquishing all claims to the country they formerly occupied.

Still others were provided for by later treaties, some of whom located on the Siletz Reservation, in Oregon, but the Clatsops and Tillamooks seem never to have been thus provided for.

It is claimed that the Clatsops ceded by the treaty of 1851 over 500,000 acres of land, but reserved a small tract on the extreme northwest corner of the present State

of Oregon, known as Point Adams, some 3,000 acres, on which a Government lighthouse was established many years ago, and Fort Stevens is also said to have been located thereon.

The extent of the tract ceded by the Tillamooks is not definitely known, but a full description thereof is given in the unratified treaty of 1851 (Doc. No. 48, art. 1), viz:

"The said Tillamook tribe of Indians hereby cede to the United States the tract of land included within the following boundaries, viz: Beginning at the point of rocks claimed as the southwestern corner of lands lately owned by the Naalem band of Tillamooks on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, running thence southerly along said coast to the south side of the first headland north of the Neastocka River; thence east to the summit of the Coast Range of mountains; thence northerly along the summit of said range to the southern boundary of lands lately claimed by said Naalem band; thence westerly along said southern boundary to the place of beginning, the above-described land being all that is claimed by said tribe of Tillimook Indians."

In view of the facts stated, and in the belief that these claims are not without merit, I am not disposed to oppose an appropriation for the benefit of the Clatsops and the Tillamooks not exceeding the sums proposed by the bills referred toS. 1989 and 1990-provided that any sum appropriated for them, respectively, or such portion thereof as shall be found equitably due them, after full and complete investigation to be made by the Secretary of the Interior, shall be accepted by the Indians in full satisfaction of all demand or claims against the United States for the land described in the agreements made with them in 1851 and of any and all claims or pretended claims against the United States.

Also, provided that before payment shall be made to them the Secretary of the Interior shall cause a census of the said tribes to be taken, from which shall be excluded any members thereof who have heretofore received from the Government benefits in money or lands, and that any moneys found due shall be paid to those living at the date of the passage of the act, or the heirs of those who may die between that date and the date of payment, or expended for them by the Secretary of the Interior as may, in his judgement, seem for their best interests.

Copies of reports and communications from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs on said bills are herewith transmitted for your information.

Very respectfully,

E. A. HITCHCOCK, Secretary.

The CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS,

United States Senate.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,
Washington, February 3, 1902.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, by Department reference for report, of a communication dated January 24, 1902, from Hon. William M. Stewart, chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, inclosing a copy of a bill (S. 1900) to provide for a final settlement with the Tillamook tribe of Indians, of Oregon, for lands ceded by said Indians to the United States in a certain agreement between said parties, dated August 7, 1851. The bill provides:

"That there be paid to the Tillamook tribe of Indians, of Oregon, the sum of thirty-five thousand dollars, to be apportioned among those now living and the heirs of those who may be dead, by the Secretary of the Interior, as their respective rights may appear; and for this purpose there be, and hereby is, appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of thirty-five thousand dollars: Provided, That said Indians shall accept said sum in full satisfaction of all demands or claims against the United States for the lands described in the agreement between the United States and the said Indians, dated August seventh, eighteen hundred and fifty-one."

By reference to Senate Executive Document (confidential) No. 39, Thirty-second Congress, first session, it will be found that on July 21, 1852, Hon. Luke Lea, then Commissioner of Indian Affairs, transmitted to the Department nineteen treaties with certain Indians in the Territory of Oregon, together with copies of sundry communications in relation thereto from the officials by whom the treaties were negotiated on behalf of the United States. Among said treaties was one with the Tillamook Indians.

This treaty was entered into on August 7, 1851, by Anson Dart, superintendent of Indian affairs; H. H. Spalding, Indian agent, and Josiah L. Parrish, sub-Indian

agent, on behalf of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Tillamook tribe, in which the tribe agreed, in article one. to cede to the United States a certain tract of land described by stated natural boundaries, on the coast of Oregon, said tract being all that was claimed by said tribe.

Article 2 provided: "That said tribe reserve to themselves the privilege of occupying, for the purpose of fishing, two small spots of ground sufficient for building their houses upon and for their horses to graze upon, one to be at the mouth and on the western side of the Neehurst River, the other near the headwaters of the Latinsh River."

In consideration of said cession, it was provided, in article three, that the United States should pay said tribe $10,500, in annual payments of $1,050, in money and goods, from year to year, at Tansey Point on the Columbia River near Clatsop Plains. In transmitting the nineteen treaties to the Department, Commissioner Lea remarked:

"The papers transmitted contain all the information that this office is able to furnish in regard to these treaties, and I regret that it is not of such a character as to justify me in expressing a confident opinion respecting their merits. With the exception, perhaps, of the one concluded at Port Orford they all contain provisions of doubtful expediency, and yet, in deference to the judgments of the intelligent gentlemen by whom they were negotiated, I am not prepared to recommend their rejection."

The same executive document sets forth that on July 30, 1852, said treaties were transmitted to the President by Hon. Alex. H. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior, with the recommendation "that they be ratified with the amendment in the treaty with the Yamhill tribe of the Callapooya Indians, suggested by Governor Gaines in his letter of the 2d January, 1852," and that on July 31, 1852, they were communicated to the Senate by President Fillmore.

Said executive document further shows that the treaties were, on August 3, 1852, read and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs, and that on August 6, 1852, they were ordered to be printed in confidence for the use of the Senate. No further action appears to have been had thereon.

On August 11, 1855, a treaty was negotiated by Joel Palmer, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, with the various tribes inhabiting the Pacific coast from the mouth of the Columbia River southward to the California line, including the Tillamooks. This treaty was never ratified. (See S. Ex. Doc. (confidential) No. 9, 34th Cong., 3d sess.)

As was stated in office report of January 25, 1900, with reference to a similar claim of the Clatsop Indians, one of the stipulations of the treaty of August 11, 1855, referred to, was the reservation of a certain quantity of land for the occupancy and use of the Indians along the coast of Oregon, and west of the coast range of mountains, yet in view of the fact that said treaty was never ratified, and the further fact that the steps which eventually culminated in the setting aside of this reservation by Executive order were inaugurated by Superintendent Palmer's letter of August 17, 1855-some months prior to the completion of the treaty-and also the fact that the reservation was actually made by Executive order of November 9, 1855, five days before the treaty was received in this office (November 14, 1855), it is not thought that the reservation, upon which many of the Indian tribes of the coast of Oregon have been collected, can be said to have been set aside in accordance with the stipulations of this treaty, as was alleged in the case of the claim of the Naalem band of Tillamook Indians, which claim was very similar to that of the Clatsops, and which was authorized to be paid by the act of June 7, 1897 (30 Stats., 78).

The reservation established by the Executive order of November 9, 1855, was for a long time known as the Coast Reservation. Its boundaries were changed by an Executive order of December 21, 1865, and again by act of Congress of March 3, 1875 (18 Stats., 446), and the reservation is now known as the Siletz.

On this reservation were collected all the tribes who were parties to the treaty of August 11, 1855, except the Tillamooks, Naalems, and Clatsops, which latter were reported by the superintendent in 1860 to number, together, 179 persons. Besides those who were parties to the unratified treaty there were other Indian tribes on this reservation. One thousand one hundred and thirty-four of the Indians on the reservation were reported in 1860 to be provided for by treaties, while 1,866 Indians were without any treaty provisions.

No record of any payments under the unratified treaty of 1855 is found in this office. Agent Buford reported to this office on July 7, 1899, that there were about 27 Tillamook Indians on the Siletz Reservation and that several resided on the Grande Ronde Reservation; that some had allotments on the Siletz Reservation while others had none; that he regarded the Naalems, Clatsops, and Tillamooks as one family, only separated in times past by imaginary lines; that they had always been loyal to

the whites and had met the same fate-their lands had been taken away from them without compensation,

The Naalem band of Tillamooks had a claim similar to that of the Tillamook tribe, and Congress passed an act appropriating $10,500 in payment of the same. See act of June 7, 1897 (30 Stat., 78). Agent Buford stated in his letter of July 7, 1899, that "if the Naalems were entitled to a pittance from the Government (and they were) so in like measure are the Tillamooks and Clatsops entitled to consideration."

The annual reports since 1855 contain many references to the alleged injustice done the coast tribes in compelling them to surrender their reservations without compensation.

The Department, in a letter dated September 22, 1899, declining to approve certain contracts between attorneys and the Tillamook and Clatsop Indians, advised this Office as follows:

"From this (office report of August 19, 1899) it seems that the then Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in transmitting these and other treaties for the action of Congress, expressed grave doubt of the merit of the treaties, thereby throwing a cloud upon the validity of the claims of the Indians, and in view of the apparently unfavorable opinion held by the Congress of the merits of the several treaties or of the claims of the Indians, I am unwilling to approve the contracts, which, with the accompanying papers, are herewith returned for file in your office."

The communication from Senator Stewart and its inclosure are herewith returned with a copy of this report.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

W. A. JONES, Commissioner.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,
Washington, January 25, 1896.

SIR: I am in receipt of a letter of January 22, 1896, from W. M. Griffith, esq., clerk of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the House of Representatives, who stated that in accordance with directions of the chairman of said committee he inclosed bill H. R. 866, with a request for an early report thereon.

Said bill is a bill to provide for a final settlement with the Naalem band of the Tillamook tribe of Indians of Oregon, in accordance with a certain agreement between the United States and the said Indians dated August 6, 1851, and it proposes to appropriate the sum of $10,500, with interest thereon from August 6, 1851, until paid, to be apportioned among members of said band of Tillamooks now living and the heirs of those who may be dead, by the Secretary of the Interior, as their respective rights may appear, provided that said Indians shall accept the same in full of all demands or claims against the United States for the lands described in said agreement of August 6, 1851.

In reply I have the honor to state that a bill was introduced in the last Congress by Mr. Hermann (H. R. 4510) having in view the same object as this bill and being identical in its terms with the bill now under consideration. The said bill (H. R. 4510) of the Fifty-third Congress was considered by me in a report dated January 6, 1894, and in another report dated February 14, 1894, in both of which reports I declined to make favorable recommendation for the reasons as stated therein, that certain correspondence in this office raised a doubt as to the righteousness of the claim of the Indians.

The matter of this claim, however, was considered in another report from me, which is dated November 14, 1895, in the light of affidavits filed in your office by Mr. Archibald Young, the attorney for the Indians. In that report I stated that it seemed from the affidavits referred to that Mr. Young had complied with suggestions made to him by you, and I suggested that if you were satisfied from the said affidavits that the claims of the Indians were relieved from the suspicion cast upon them the Committee on Indian Affairs of the House be advised of your views thereon.

I have the honor to inclose a copy of all of said reports on the subject and to recommend that they be furnished for the information of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, with such statement from you as to the advisability of the passage of the bill under consideration as you may deem expedient to make.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

D. M. BROWNING, Commissioner.