Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
History and Proposed Settlement Claims of California Indians (1944) (35 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 35
CLAIMS OF CALIFORNIA INDIANS 39
Section 2 of the Jurisdictional Act authorized the presentation of their real claim in the following language:
“All claims of whatsoever nature the Indians of California as defined in Section 1 of this Act may have against
the United States by reason of lands taken from them in
the State of California by the United States without compensation, or for the failure or refusal of the United States
to compensate them for their interest in lands in said State
which the United States appropriated to its own purposes
without the consent of said Indians may be submitted to
theCourtofClaims * * *,%
This claim was presented in Plaintiffs’ First Amended
Petition. The legislative history of the Jurisdictional Act
shows that it was the original intent of Congress to permit the
Indians to present their claims for rights of occupancy in
land, and this intent was manifest in all the various bills antecedent to the passage of H.R. 491 and was even included in
that act as quoted above, this bill becoming the Jurisdictional
Act of May 18, 1928 (45 Stat. 602).
But the Congress, after having preserved this express
language, created a definite liability in the last Paragraph of
Section 2 by declaring that “the loss to the said Indians on
account of their failure to secure the lands and compensation
Provided for in the eighteen unratified treaties is sufficient
ground for equitable relief.” And in the proviso of Section 3
the power of the Court of Claims was trammeled~‘and
restricted to handing down a decree for an “amount equal to
the just value of the compensation provided or proposed for
the Indians in those certain eighteen unratified treaties, etc.,
including the lands described therein at $1.25 an acre.”
The wording of these two paragraphs made valueless the
comprehensive provisions of Section 2 and Prevented recovery
on the ground of occupancy, use and immemorial Possession.
The Congress created a liability and instructed the Court of . =:
Claims to ascertain by judicial process what the amount of .the recovery shall be—it limited the land to the reservations
promised in the treaties at a fixed price of $1.25 an acre and
the chattels, goods and services to those mentioned therein.