Los Angeles herald., 1906-11-07
WORKING A NEW GRAFT
How" ."Nestors" Get Free Use of indian
Lands from Ignorant
Redskins

Special to The Herald.
MUSKOGEE, 1. T., Nov. 6.-After
several months of investigation. there
have been prosecutions brought In the
courts against one hundred lessees in
the Chickasaw nation, charging that
they are robbing the Indians by hold
ing leases that are either void or for
insufficient compensation, or that they
are "nestors' living on land that be-
longs to Indians and on which they
are not paying rent. This great graft
has been uncovered by the Indian
agent and his men, who have been
working for months in the field.
Beginning about fifteen years ago
there were lots of white men from Kan
sas, Texts and Arkansas who drifted
into the Chickasaw nation and squatted
on land. They built houses and cul-
tivated the land. No one objected, be-
cause there was more land than any
thing else, and no one wanted 1t. There
are thousands and thousands of acres
of land held now by these same per-
sons, whose sole claim is that they
saw it first. 1t has been allotted, but
the Indians and fullbloods live in an
other part of the nation, never saw the
land, and were allotted by grafters who
paid their expenses to the land office
and home again in order to get them
to file on the land they wanted to lease.
In some instances the nestor and the
CRATER are one and the same.
The biggest graft that -yas practiced
however, was when land grabbers
would bring ignorant fullbloods from
the mountains, take them out and show
them a farm with good improvements,
tell them they would file them on that
farm and give then the improvements,
the CRATER claiming to own the land,
If the Indian would give them a five
year lease on his allotment free. 1t
was no trouble to get the Indian to
agree to this so he would go to the
land office with the CRATER, tell the
clerk he had seen the land and wanted
1t. Then the CRATER would furnish the
Indian description of land probably
a hundred miles away from the land
he had been, shown. am the CRATER
would have a five-year lease on 1t. to
do with as he chose. The Indian would
go back home, waiting for the five
years to elapse, never really knowing
where his land was or that 1t was un-
improved and being used by the CRATER
absolutely without pay.
So general was the practice of
showing Indians one piece of land and
giving him description of another
piece that 1t Is claimed that hundreds
OF Indians were shown one finely i'm
proved farm few miles out of Tisho-
mingo. where the land office was locat-
ed. The Indian would believe that he
was filing on that farm and would
gladly sign a lease In order to get the
improvements at the expiration of the
lease. It Is further stated that every
livery team in Tishomingo got so ac-
customed to going to that farm that II
would start out, go straight to the
farm, turn around and come back
without being directed by the driver
The farm Is owned by a halfbreed
Chickasaw.
The government got onto this lease
grabbing and started to investigate
The difficulty can be imagined when
one considers that the lessee would not
tell what land he held, nor what he
was paying for II. Consult the indian
and he could not tell where his land
was nor would he know II II he should
see At. The result vas the government
had to send surveyors in the field, get
the number OF the land the indians had
filed upon, run the lines ana then force
the lessee to show by what right he
held the land or else get OF OF 1t. II
II was found that he held lease OF In.
adequate compensation he was forced
TO make a new and fair lease or else
his old one would be cancelled and the
Indian put In possession. There were
hundreds Of lessees forced to settle
ment In this way but hundred have