March 2, 1895
[Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from the United States Statutes at Large, Volume 28, which contains the public laws passed by the Fifty-Third Congress during its third session in 1895. The following text is from Chapter 188 (28 Stat. 909).]
Sec. 10. That with the consent of a majority of the chiefs, headmen, and male adults of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians and the Kickapoo tribe of Indians in the State of Kansas, expressed in open council by each tribe, the Secretary of the Interior be, and he hereby is, authorized to cause to be sold, in trust for said Indians, the surplus or unallotted lands of the reservations of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians of Jackson County, Kansas, and the Kickapoo tribe of Indians in Brown County, Kansas. The said lands shall be appraised, in tracts of eighty acres each, by three competent commissioners, one of whom shall be selected by the Indians, and the other two shall be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior: Provided, That either tribe may consent to the sale of its own lands and select a commissioner without the consent of the other, and when one tribe does consent to such sale the Secretary of the Interior shall proceed to sell the surplus lands of such tribe.
That after the appraisement of said lands the Secretary of the Interior shall be, and hereby is, authorized to offer the same, through the United States public land office at Topeka, Kansas, at public sale to the highest bidder: Provided, That no portion of such land shall be sold at less than the appraised value thereof, and in no case for less than six dollars per acre, and to none except persons over twenty-one years of age and to such as purchase the same for actual occupation and settlement, and who have made and subscribed on oath, before the register of said land office, and filed the same with said officer of the land office, at Topeka, Kansas, that it is his good-faith intention to settle upon and occupy the land which he seeks to purchase, and improve the same for a home; and, except in case of death of the purchaser, unless said party shall have executed his declared intention by making improvements and being in actual occupation of said land, by actual residence thereon, at the time for making the second payment, he shall forfeit the payment already made, and the land shall be subject to resale as hereinafter provided. Each purchaser of said lands at such sale shall be entitled to purchase one hundred and sixty acres of land, and no more, except in cases where a tract contains a fractional excess over one hundred and sixty acres: Provided, That any Indian twenty-one years of age may purchase not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres without the requirements as to settlement upon the lands. All purchasers shall pay one-fourth of the purchase price at the time said land is bid off, one-fourth in one year, one-fourth in two years, and one-fourth in three years, with interest on the deferred payments at the rate of six per centum per annum, and such sums when paid shall be placed in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the respective tribes of Indians, and draw interest at the rate of five per centum per annum, which interest shall be paid annually to said tribes, respectively, per capita, in cash. No patents shall issue until all payments shall have been made; and on failure of any purchaser to make payment as required by this section he shall forfeit the lands purchased, and the same shall be subject to entry and sale, at the appraised value thereof, or shall be again offered at public sale, as the Secretary of the Interior may determine.
That there shall be exempted from the provisions of this section the lands upon which the two boarding, or industrial, schools are located on these reservations, not exceeding six hundred and forty acres for each school, the amount to be determined and designated, after the tribe shall have assented, by the Secretary of the Interior.
That for the purpose of carrying this section into effect the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, be, and the same hereby is, appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, which sum shall be reimbursed to the United States out of the proceeds of the first sales of lands made under the provisions hereof, each tribe to be charged only with the expenses attending the sale of its own lands.
That before any of the surplus lands belonging to the Kickapoo tribe of Indians shall be sold under the provisions of this section there shall be allotted by the Secretary of the Interior eighty acres to each of the children of said tribe residing on or adjacent to said reservation who have not heretofore received any lands: Provided, That this section may be adopted or rejected separate and apart from the other provisions of this Act, by the said Kickapoo tribe.
Approved, March 2, 1895.