Greenwood daily commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1919-1926, 1919-12-27
SEEK OIL LAND
UNDER RED RIVER
Wichita Indians Now Set Up An
cient Title to River
Channel.
HIs1uRY INVOLVED IN SUIT
Question Enerosses Attention Of Law.
yers, Oil Men, Land Owners n
Federal and State Officials-Gives
History of Wichita Claim.

AOSIln, 1tA.-Sti1OIh a " NoSN
been filed in American courts in which
history has been involved to the eX-
tent that it is in the question OF the
ownership of the channel of the Red
river. beneath the bed of which are
valuable oil deposits.
This question has been engrossing
the attention of lawyers, oil men, land
owners and federal and state officials.
The state of Texas claims ownership
in the bed of the river to the center
of the channel. while the federal gov
eminent and the state of Oklahoma
oppose the claim of Texas under the
terms of the treaty of Spain in 1919,
bv which the northern boundary of the
spanish dominions in Texas was desig-
mated as the south bank of tie Red
river.
The federal authorities hold that
the ownership of the Red river bed
areas in dispute belong to the Indian
tribes which owned the adjacent res
~ervations. and the state of Oklahoma
maintains that, as a m~eanderinS
stream, the bed of the Red river IS
state property and hould be leased
for the benefit OF the state ScHOOl lunu'
Another Claimant.
Joseph B. Thoburn, secretary of the
Oklahoma Historical society. has adj
vanced the suggestion that there is
still another claimant to the owner
ship of the oil bearing area of the
channel of the Red river, namely, the
Wichita Indians. Mr.. Thoburn in the
= n-,4r4 VIC =
solder than n of the claims OF
ownership which are now being
pressed for the possession of the oil
bearing areas of the channel of the
Red river-older han any claim OF
the State of Texas by rights derived
from Mexico or Spain. and Older than
any claim of the State of Oklahoma
or of the United States which may
have been derived from France
through the purchase of Louisiana
Is the right of the aboriginal owners
of the land on both sides of the river
and these are the people of the Wich'
ita tribe of Indians.
'The ancestors of the Wichita In
dams have lived in Oklahoma and ad'
iacent states for a thousand years. anC
for approximately five hundred years
Ipast they have occupied the country
on both sides of the Red river in tina
part of it's cours where it traverse:
the Burkburnett oil fields. In usin:
the word occupied in this connection
II do so advisedly, for these people
have always been sedentary in thei1
habits, living in fixed villages and de
pending largely upon the cultivation
of the soil for their subsistence.
"The rights of the Wichita indians
to the ownership Of these lands ha'
never been extinguished by purchase
Exchange or otherwise, though stat
and federal governments have seem
ingly proceeded on the theory that n
such right ever existed. From the tim
Of it's foundation the federal govern
ment has always paid due regard, a
least in form. to the extinguishmen
of title to lands which were claime
by the several Indian tribes under al
original occupancy. The n exception
to this has been that of the WIGHT
Indians, who lived in the upper Re
river country, between the Canada
and BraZoS rivers.
indians Cede Land.
"In 1918 certain chiefs and warrior
of the Quapaw tribe of Indians, i
council at st. Louis with Willial
Clark and Auguste Chouteau, as con
missioners representing the govern
ment Of the United States. entered in
to a treaty by the terms of which the
coded all of the lands in Oklahoma an
Texas between the Arkansas and Cal
adian rivers on the north and the Re
river on the south to the government
The fact that the Quapaw Indian
lived in eastern Arkansas, that the
seldom went as far west as the easter
boundary of Oklahoma and that the
never by occupancy or otherwise exc
cised IN form of ownership or juri
diction over any of the lands With
200 miles of the region where tt
Wichitas were living, do not seem
have entered into the considerable
at all, if, indeed, the government cor
missioners had any knowledge of tt
existence of the Wichitas at that tim
Yet. with this Quapaw transaction
a basis. ne government of the Unite
States executed a 81 n of these lane
to the people later. More than thir'
years later the Wichita people fir
learned that their country had bee
sold by the Quapaw and then grant,
to the Choctaws.
"If the government of the Unit,
States ever means to do the sQua
and honorable thing by the Wichi
Indians it will never have a bett
chance than it has at the present tim
Their lands r gone-sOld to stran
ers without recompense to them a.
without their consent-but they st
have an equitable claim to the ownt
ship of the Red River channel oil pro
critics. and simple justice deman
that they be given q chance to esta
fish it."
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Lease Contracts; Abstract Bian