The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1919-11-20
Wichita Indians Now Set Up An
cient Title to River
Channel.
HISTORY INVOLVED IN SUIT
Question Engrosses Attention Of Law
yers, Oil Men, Land Owners and
Federal and State OfficiaIs-Gives
History Of Wichita Claim.

history has been involved to the ex
tent that it is in the question of thu
ownership of the channel Of the Rec
river, beneath the bed Of which are
valuable oil deposits.
This question has been engrossine
the attention Of lawyers, oil men, lanf
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
by which the northern boundary of the
Spanish dominions in Texas was desig-
mated as the south bank Of the 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 meandering
stream, the bed of the Red river is
state property and should be leased
for the benefit Of the state school fund.
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
course of an extended statement says:
solder than any 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 than 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.
1.-THE ancestors of the Wichita In
dams have lived in Oklahoma and adj
jacent states for thousand years, and
for approximately five hundred years
past they have occupied the country
on both sides of the Red river in that
art of it's course where it traverses
the Burkburnett oil fields. In using
the word occupied in this connection.
I do so advisedly, for these people |
have always been sedentary in their
habits, living in fixed villages and de- 1
pending largely upon the cultivation |
of the soil for their subsistence.
"The rights of the Wichita Indians |
to the ownership of these lands has |
never been extinguished by purchase. |
exchange or otherwise, though state |
and federal governments have seem
ngly proceeded on the theory that no |.
such right ever existed. From the time /
If its foundation the federal govern I
nent has always paid due regard, at /
east In form, to the extinguishment 1
If title to lands which were claimed +
~ the several Indian tribes under alb
original occupancy. The one exception
o this has been that of the Wichita I
indians, who lived in the upper Red
liver country, between the Canadian
md Brazos rivers.
Indians cede Land.
"In 1918 certain chiefs and warriors
If the Quapaw tribe of Indians, in
ouncil at st. Louis with William
lark and Auguste Chouteau, as COM
nissioners representing the govern
nent Of the United States, entered in
o a treaty by the terms of which they
eded all of the lands in Oklahoma and
'exas between the Arkansas and Can
dian rivers on the north and the Red
liver on the south to the government.
he fact that the Quapaw Indians
we'd in eastern Arkansas, that they
eldom went as far west as the eastern
oundary of Oklahoma and that they
ever by occupancy or otherwise exer-
sed any form of ownership or juris-
lotion over any of the lands within
% miles Of the region where the
Jichitas were living, do not seem to
ave entered into the consideration =
all, if, indeed, the government COM
issioners had any knowledge of the
dstence of the Wichitas at that time.
et with this Quapaw transaction as
basis, the government of the United
fates executed grant of these lands 2
the people later More than thirty :
ears later the Wichita people first
armed that their country had been
Id by the Quapaw and then granted
the Choctaws. 8
"If the government of the United =
ates ever means to do the square
i'd honorable thing by the Wichita
dams it will never have a better
ance than it has at the present time. e
leir lands are gone-sOId to strang- =
S without recompense to them and :
thout their consent-but they still =
We an equitable claim to the owner >
ip of the Red River channel oil prop y
ties, and simple justice demands y
at they be given a chance to estab- !.
It," =