The Wrangell sentinel., 1930-01-23
BASIS OF INDIAN SUIT
 EXPLAINED BY WICKERSHAM

by the Stroller s Weekly from Judge James Wickersham relative to the suit which natives of southeastern Alaska have tiled against the fed eral government with the nope of being reimbursed for property which they claimed to have owned during Russian ownership of Alaska and of which they say they were dispossesed when the United States purchased the property. The Indians will be represented in court by Judge Wickersham and by W. L. Paul, Ketchikan attorney. Judge Wickersham's statement is as fol- lows:
 The Thlinget and Haida Indians, residing in Southeastern Alaska, when the Russians first settled here to trade in furs, owned homes, fisheries, hunting grounds and oth- CT properties ana maInJalned a sys- tenn Of rules and customs TOT their protection and government. Their villages of great community houses, before which stood high, carved and painted totems poles, extended from Yakutat and Kluckwan to those along Dixon's entrance on the south.
 There were about 1000 h. dians in that area; they lived in permanent villages; were fisher men, boat-builders, carVers, blan- ket makers; had fixed property rights, we'll understood by all, and respected by the tribes as well as individuals. The Russian fur trad CTS always respected and protected these Indian properties rights, and were forbidden by Russian laws to interfere with or destroy them. When the United States purchased Alaska in 1876, it agreed with Rus s1a to acknowledge and protect the Indians in their rights of property. No treaty or agreement of any kind had ever been made by the Rus sians to quiet or purchase the h. dian properties, and none has since been made by the United States. Our government just assumed to own the lands and properties of the Indians in Alaska, and has gone as an assumed owner to sell the same to its citizens. Their homes, fish cries, hunting gorunds, etc., have been either reserved for sale in for est reserve, or sold to white settlers for salmon cannery sites, townsites, homesteads or mines, or such other uses as. the government wished. The Indians have not been consulted in any way about these sales.
 Tt has been the universal and just rule of the United States from the date of the establishment of our government in 1776, to make treaties with all the Indian tribes in the west, and pay them fair price for their Indian titles. There are vast sums of money now in the United States treasury belonging to the Indian tribes, of which annual installments are paid out to them or their descendants for their h. dain titles and lands. But no such treaty or settlement was ever made with the Alaska Indians.
 Our Alaska Indians cannot, and do not desire to recover these lands and property rights, so taken from them by the government, but only ask for just payment for them by the United States, as they actually owned and occupied them when our government took such properties from them for sale to our white people.
 "To secure payment for such property rights, the Indians must, first, persuade congress to pass law permitting them to bring a suit against the United States in the Court of Claims, in Washing ton, D. c. Second, bring such suit and prove their ownership and the value of their property rights so taken, and, third, thereupon the United States Court of Claims will give such judgment as to the law and facts will warrant for the value of the property taken.
 Congress passed several acts within the last two years author fzing similar suits from California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. and such suits are pending in the Court of Claims. Application will be made to congress to pass an act authorizing the Southeastern Alas ka Indians to bring such suit