The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1908-12-27
INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA WHO RE
FUSE ALLoTMENTS.
MORE THAN FOUR THOUSAND
cherokses Especially Refuse to Ae
cept Patents to Their Allotn,cnts.
Many Snake Indians hlso Re
turn Patents Sent Them.

Washington. Dec PC There atc'
people Who will not accept good
farms when given TO them. They live.
IN oklahoma There are several
thousands of them TO be exact thoro
are 417L They are indians They
have owned all the land they coul
hunt. fish or tarycl over for so many
generations that land vau, IS to.
them an unknown quantity But they
owned this land in common Each
took what he wanted when and
where he would, and possession as
ownership.
Conditions have charged. Hut the.
/ Indian has not, tha; is The full
blood has not. 1t has boon ncces-
sary to segrcgatc to the Indian lands
and allot each one his share But
the fullbloods cannot see the noccs-
sity for this and they can't see it,.
In the allotment work the govern
ment found All lun-blood Indians
who refused to accept certificates or
/ patents TO their land when thog ov.
I crnmcnt tried TO deliver them. Every
effort has been made to get the In.
| dians TO accept the patents to their
allotments, but few OF those who re-.
/ fused at first have been persuaded
TO take them.
In the Cherokee nation arbitrary
allotments were made to about 2O0O
| citizens, and when the patents were
| sent to them by registered mail 1,640
were returned. Very few of these
have since been induced to take their
/ patents. These Indians are known as
I the Night Hawks in the Cherokee ma.
tion. In the Creek nation there were
/ l,l31 certificates of allotment return
/ ed by the Snake Indians. The Snakes
of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations
/ refused l,6i0 patents that were sent
J to them. There were COO Choctaws
| who were given arbitrary allotments
! by the Dawes commission, and every
one of these refused their patents
and could not be induced to accept
them when special messcngenrs were
sent to them with the patents. They
took interpreters along and went right
to the full-blood settlements, but the
Indians would not yield.
The most general plan of delivering
/ patents has been by registered mail.
/ The records of the government shows
that thousands of these registered let
ters have been returned TO the com.
missioner's office at Muskogee the
Indians refusing to take any sort OF
a letter that they thought came from
! the governments, whole hundreds re-
ceivei and reccipted for the letters,
and then returned them to the gov
ernment offices.
These, of course, are the Indians
who have bitterly opposed the allot-
ment of lands ever since the creation
of the Dawes commission for that pur.
pose more than ten years ago. What
will become OF these Indians and their
allotments is a knotty question. II
they do not want the land, there is
no power to make them take II or
live upon H. But they will be crowd
ed out of their present homes sooner
or later when the allottees who have
allotted the land take possession and
fence II.
The average allotment in the Cher
okee nation is 1l0 acres. In the Creek
and Seminole nations It is 100 acres
and in the Choctaw and Chlckasaw
nations IL is 32O acres.