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Amendments to the Crow Act of 1920 (May, 1926)

See also Kappler annotated version, Oklahoma State University

Chapter 403
May 26, 1926. | [H. R. 8185.] 44 Stat., 658.

An Act To amend sections, 1, 5, 6, 8, and 18 of an Act approved June 4, 1920, entitled “An Act to provide for the allotment of lands of the Crow Tribe, for the distribution of tribal funds and for other purposes.”

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the first, fifth, sixth, eighth, and eighteenth sections of an Act providing for the allotment of lands of the Crow Tribe, for the distribution of tribal funds, and for other purposes, approved June 4, 1920 (Forty-first Statutes at Large, pages 751-757), be amended to read as follows:

SEC. 1.

That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he hereby is, authorized and directed to cause to be allotted the surveyed lands and such unsurveyed lands as the commission hereinafter provided for may find to be suitable for allotment, within the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana (not including the Big Horn and Pryor Mountains, the boundaries whereof to be determined by said commission with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior), and not herein reserved as hereinafter provided, among the members of the Crow Tribe, as follows, namely, one hundred and sixty acres to the heirs of every enrolled member, entitled to allotment, who died unallotted after December 31, 1905, and before the passage of this Act; next, one hundred and sixty acres to every allotted member living at the date of the passage of this Act, who may then be the head of a family and has not received allotment as such head of a family; and thereafter to prorate the remaining unallotted allotable lands and allot them so that every enrolled member living on the date of the passage of this Act and entitled to allotment shall receive in the aggregate an equal share of the allocable tribal lands for his total allotment of land of the Crow Tribe. Allotments made hereunder shall vest title in the allottee subject only to existing tribal leases, which leases in no event shall be renewed or extended by the Secretary of the Interior after the passage of this Act, and shall as hereinafter provided be evidenced by patents in fee to competent

Indians, except as to homesteads as hereinafter provided, but by trust patent to minors and incompetent Indians, the force and legal effect of the trust patents to be as is prescribed by the General Allotment Act of February 8, 1887, as amended (Twenty-fourth Statutes at. Large, page 388). Priority of selection, up to three hundred and twenty acres, is hereby given to the members of the tribe who have as yet received no allotment on the Crow Reservation, and thereafter all members enrolled for allotment hereunder shall in all respects be entitled to equal rights and privileges, as far as possible, in regard to the time, manner, and amount of their respective selections: Provided, That Crow Indians, who are found to be competent, may elect, in writing, to have their allotments, except as herein provided, patented to them in fee. Otherwise trust patents shall be issued to them. No patent in fee shall be issued for homestead lands of a husband unless the wife joins in the application, who shall be examined separately and apart from her husband and a certificate of the officer taking her acknowledgment shall fully set. forth compliance with this requirement: Provided further, That any allottee classified as competent may lease his or her allotment or any part thereof and the allotments of minor children for farming and grazing purposes. Any adult incompetent Indian with the approval of the superintendent may lease his or her allotment or any part thereof and the allotments of minor children for farming and grazing purposes. The allotments of orphan minors shall be leased by the superintendent. Moneys received for or on behalf of all incompetent Indians and minor children shall be paid to the superintendent by the lessee for the benefit of said Indians. No lease shall be made for a period longer than five years. All leases made under this section shall be recorded at the Crow Agency.

SEC. 5.

That such of the unallotted lands as are now used for agency, school, cemetery, or religious purposes shall remain reserved from allotment so long as such agency, school, cemetery, or religious institutions, respectively, are maintained for the benefit of the tribe: Provided, That the Secretary of the Interior, upon the request of the tribal council, is hereby authorized and directed to cause to be issued a patent in fee to the duly authorized missionary board or other proper authority of any religious organization heretofore engaged in mission or school work on the reservation for such lands thereon as have been heretofore set aside and are now occupied by such organizations for missionary or school purposes: Provided further, That not more than six hundred and forty acres may be reserved for administrative purposes at the Crow Agency, and six tracts of not exceeding eighty acres each, in different districts on the reservation, may be reserved for recreation grounds for the common use of the tribe, or purchased from the tribal funds if no tribal lands are available, and all such lands shall be definitely described and made a matter of record by the Indian Office: Provided further, That whenever any reservation herein specified shall no longer be needed for the purpose reserved, the same may be leased or disposed of by sale, in such manner as the said Crow Indians may determine.

SEC. 6.

That any and all minerals, including oil and gas, on any of the lands to be allotted hereunder are reserved for the benefit of the members of the tribe in common and may be leased for mining purposes, with the consent of the tribal council under such rules, regulations, and conditions as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe, but no lease shall be made for a longer period than ten years, but the lessees may have the right to renewal thereof for a further period of ten years upon such terms and conditions as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe, and agreed to by said tribal council: Provided, That when any land is leased for mining purposes and development thereunder shall indicate the presence of minerals including oil and gas in paying quantities, the lessee or lessees shall proceed with all reasonable diligence to complete the development under said lease to extract the mineral including oil and gas from the land leased and to bring the product mined or extracted into market as speedily as possible unless the extraction and sale thereof be withheld with the consent of the Crow Tribe of Indians: Provided, however, That allotments hereunder may be made of lands classified as valuable chiefly for coal or other minerals which may be patented as herein provided with a reservation, set forth in the patent, of the coal, oil, gas, or other mineral deposits for the benefit of the Crow Tribe: And provided further, That at the expiration of fifty years from the date of approval of this Act, unless otherwise ordered by Congress, the coal, oil, gas, or other mineral deposits upon or beneath the surface of said allotted lands shall become the property of the individual allottee or his heirs.

SEC. 8.

That any allotment or part of allotment provided for under this Act, irrigable from any irrigation system now existing or hereafter constructed by the Government on the said reservation, shall bear its pro rata share, computed on a per acre basis, of the expenditures made from tribal funds that were used in constructing such systems where the Indians in council had not specifically approved such expenditures, and all moneys except gratuities expended on the construction of such irrigation systems out of the appropriations from the Treasury of the United States, the amount so in the aggregate to be borne to be ascertained and proclaimed by the Secretary of the Interior: Provided, That no additional irrigation system shall be established or constructed by the Government for the irrigation of Indian lands on the Crow Reservation unless and until the consent of the tribal council thereto has been duly obtained. All such charges against allotments authorized by this section shall be reimbursed in not less than twenty annual payments. The Secretary of the Interior may fix such operation and maintenance charges against such allotments as may be reasonable and just, to be paid as provided in rules and regulations to be prescribed by him. Unless otherwise paid, these latter charges accruing subsequent to August 1, 1914, may be paid from or made a charge upon the allottee’s individual share of the tribal fund when said fund is available for distribution, and if any allottee shall receive patent in fee to his allotment before the amount so charged against his land has been paid, such unpaid amount shall become and be a lien upon his allotment, of which a record shall be kept in the office of the superintendent of the reservation at the agency; and should any Indian sell any part of his allotment with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, the amount of such unpaid charges against the land so sold shall remain a first lien thereon and may be enforced by the Secretary of the Interior by foreclosure as a mortgage. The expenditures for irrigation work on the Crow Reservation, Montana, heretofore or hereafter made, as hereinbefore provided, are hereby declared to be reimbursable under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe and shall constitute a lien against the land benefited, regardless of ownership, including all lands which have heretofore been sold or patented. All patents or other instruments of conveyance hereafter issued for lands under any irrigation project on the said Crow Indian Reservation, whether to individual Indians or to purchasers of Indian land, shall recite a lien for repayment of such irrigation charges hereinbefore provided for, if any, remaining unpaid at the time of issuance of such patent or other instrument of conveyance; and such lien may be enforced or upon payment of all such irrigation charges assessed against such land may be released by the Secretary of the Interior. Delivery of water to such land may be refused, within the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior, until all dues are paid: Provided, That no right to water or to the use of any irrigation ditch or other structure on said reservation shall vest until the owner of the land to be irrigated shall comply with such rules and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe, and he is hereby authorized to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be deemed reasonable and proper for making effective the foregoing provisions: Provided however, That in no case shall any allottee be required to pay either construction, operation, or maintenance charges for such irrigation privileges, or any of them, until water can be actually delivered to his allotment: Provided further, That the Secretary of the Interior shall cause to be made immediately, if not already made, an itemized statement showing in detail the cost of the construction of the several irrigation systems now existing on the Crow Indian Reservation separately, the same to be placed at the Crow Agency, and with the Government farmers of each of the districts of the reservation, for the information of the Indians affected by this section.

SEC. 18.

That the sum of $10,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, of the tribal funds of the Crow Indians of the State of Montana is hereby appropriated to pay the expenses of the general council, or councils, or business committee, in looking after the affairs of said tribe, including the actual and necessary expenses and the per diems paid its legislative committee when visiting Washington on tribal business at the request of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs or a committee of Congress, said sum and the actual and necessary expenses to be approved by and certified by the Secretary of the Interior, and when so approved and certified to be paid."

Approved, May 26, 1926.