OCR Text |
Show PD CLA!MEDBY IIDUIS Butte. Mont.. Jan. 17. The chiefs and head men of the Elackfeet Indian nation held a council on the reservation a few days ago. a report of which has just been brought in. to consider old griev ances against the government growing out of the alleged frauds and misrepresentation misrepre-sentation in various treaties and the violation vio-lation on the part of the government of the treaty of isr.5. by which over Sfi.'JOO.OOO acres of land were taken from the Indians in 1?i4 without compensation. Th Indians Indi-ans have retained Chancellor Charles O Donnell of Butte to prosecute their claim. Spe-aking for the Indians today R. J Hamilton, a full-blooded Blackfeet. and a graduate of Carlisle, said that in 1S55 the government entered Into a treaty with the Blackfeet. Flatheads. Pigans Grosventres. Assinaboines, River Crows! Bloods, Santee and Yakatona Sioux, by which they, the Indian, were given a ninety-year grant to all the territory now in Montana and lying north and west of the "Yellowstone river. Nineteen years later, without consent of the Indians, congress took from the Indians about 2i.fK),(M acres and confined 'them to their present narrow reservation. H is also alleged that in subsequent treaties their territory was encroached upon and their rights made more limited The government commission, with the aid of corrupt interpreters, made mi "representations "repre-sentations to them and defrauded them, and they are now going to seek redress in tho white man's court. The land of which they claim they were defrauded and for which they now want compensation comprises nearly a third of the artia. of the state of Montana. |