Mr. Foreman prepared for me a comprehensive statement of conditions in Oklahoma. It is the best presentation of the subject that I have seen and I herewith include it, in the following eight pages.
“The lands of the Indians were allotted to them with restrictions against alienation or encumbrance. The Creek land was restricted to August 8, 1907; the Choctaw and Chickasaw lands could be sold one-fourth in one year, one-fourth in three years and the remainder in five years from date of patent. The Cherokee land could not be sold for five years. Out of each allotment a homestead was reserved, which under the law allotting it, could not be sold or taxed for twenty-one years. This was a condition agreed to by the Government in order to get the Indians to consent to the allotment of their lands. The Creek, Seminole and Cherokee homestead was 40 acres and the Choctaw and Chickasaw 160 acres. Directly after the allotting began, a great clamor went up from the white people to Congress to remove the restrictions on the sale of a part of the lands allotted. In response to this demand, on April 21, 1904, an act was passed removing the restrictions against the sale of the lands except homesteads of the adult members of the Five Civilized Tribes not of Indian blood, which included mainly freedmen citizens of the tribes and affected 1,500,000 acres of land.
“In the next month, May, 1904, President Roosevelt commissioned Mr. M. L. Mott of North Carolina to act as National Attorney for the Creek Tribe of Indians. This appointment was important to the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes, for Mr. Mott took a deep interest in their condition and became a forceful advocate for them; he was instrumental in impressing enactments upon the Federal statutes and securing from the Supreme Court constructions of the statutes that are essential to the Indians’ welfare and that will secure to them their property rights for many years beyond the time allotted by local consent.
“Soon after Mr. Mott assumed his duties he observed that a large part of the land made salable by the Act of April 21, 1904, almost immediately had passed into the hands of white people and the grossly inadequate consideration received by the allottees had been wasted. This was food for serious thought.