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Proclamation 288—Opening to Settlement Certain Lands in the Indian Territory

March 23, 1889


By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Whereas, pursuant to section 8 of the act of Congress approved March 3, 1885, entitled "An act making appropriations for the current and contingent expenses of the Indian Department and for fulfilling treaty stipulations with various Indian tribes for the year ending June 30, 1886, and for other purposes," certain articles of cession and agreement were made and concluded at the city of Washington on the 19th day of January, A. D. 1889, by and between the United States of America and the Muscogee (or Creek) Nation of Indians, whereby the said Muscogee (or Creek) Nation of Indians, for the consideration therein mentioned, ceded and granted to the United States, without reservation or condition, full and complete title to the entire western half of the domain of the said Muscogee (or Creek) Nation in the Indian Territory, lying west of the division line surveyed and established under the treaty with said nation dated the 14th day of June, 1866, and also granted and released to the United States all and every claim, estate, right, or interest of any and every description in and to any and all land and territory whatever, except so much of the former domain of said Muscogee (or Creek) Nation as lies east of said line of division surveyed and established as aforesaid, and then used and occupied as the home of said nation, and which articles of cession and agreement were duly accepted, ratified, and confirmed by said Muscogee (or Creek) Nation of Indians by act of its council approved on the 31st day of January, 1889, and by the United States by act of Congress approved March 1, 1889; and

Whereas by section 12 of the act entitled "An act making appropriations for the current and contingent expenses of the Indian Department and for fulfilling treaty stipulations with various Indian tribes for the year ending June 30, 1890, and for other purposes," approved March 2, 1889, a sum of money was appropriated to pay in full the Seminole Nation of Indians for all the right, title, interest, and claim which said nation of Indians might have in and to certain lands ceded by article 3 of the treaty between the United States and said nation of Indians concluded June 14, 1866, and proclaimed August 16, 1866, said appropriation to become operative upon the execution by the duly appointed delegates of said nation specially empowered to do so of a release and conveyance to the United States of all right, title, interest, and claim of said nation of Indians in and to said lands in manner and form satisfactory to the President of the United States; and

Whereas said release and conveyance, bearing date the 16th day of March, 1889, has been duly and fully executed, approved, and delivered; and

Whereas section 13 of the act last aforesaid, relating to said lands, provides as follows:

Sec. 13. That the lands acquired by the United States under said agreement shall be a part of the public domain, to be disposed of only as herein provided; and sections 16 and 36 of each township, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, are hereby reserved for the use and benefit of the public schools to be established within the limits of said land under such conditions and regulations as may be hereafter enacted by Congress.

That the lands acquired by conveyance from the Seminole Indians hereunder, except the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections, shall be disposed of to actual settlers under the homestead laws only, except as herein otherwise provided (except that section 230l of the Revised Statutes shall not apply): And provided further, That any person who, having attempted to but for any cause failed to secure a title in fee to a homestead under existing law, or who made entry under what is known as the commuted provision of the homestead law, shall be qualified to make a homestead entry upon said lands: And provided further, That the rights of honorably discharged Union soldiers and sailors in the late Civil War as defined and described in sections 2304 and 2305 of the Revised Statutes shall not be abridged: And provided further, That each entry shall be in square form as nearly as practicable, and no person be permitted to enter more than one quarter section thereof, but until said lands are opened for settlement by proclamation of the President no person shall be permitted to enter upon and occupy the same, and no person violating this provision shall ever be permitted to enter any of said lands or acquire any right thereto.

The Secretary of the Interior may, after said proclamation and not before, permit entry of said lands for town sites, under sections 2387 and 2388 of the Revised Statutes, but no such entry shall embrace more than one half section of land.

That all the foregoing provisions with reference to lands to be acquired from the Seminole Indians, including the provisions pertaining to forfeiture, shall apply to and regulate the disposal of the lands acquired from the Muscogee (or Creek ) Indians by articles of cession and agreement made and concluded at the city of Washington on the 19th day of January, A. D. 1889.

Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested by said act of Congress approved March 2, 1889, aforesaid, do hereby declare and make known that so much of the lands as aforesaid acquired from or conveyed by the Muscogee (or Creek) Nation of Indians and from or by the Seminole Nation of Indians, respectively, as is contained within the following-described boundaries, viz:

Beginning at a point where the degree of longitude 98 west from Greenwich, as surveyed in the years 1858 and 1871, intersects the Canadian River; thence north along and with the said degree to a point where the same intersects the Cimarron River; thence up said river, along the right bank thereof, to a point where the same is intersected by the south line of what is known as the Cherokee lands lying west of the Arkansas River, or as the "Cherokee Outlet," said line being the north line of the lands ceded by the Muscogee (or Creek) Nation of Indians to the United States by the treaty of June 14, 1866; thence east along said line to a point where the same intersects the west line of the lands set apart as a reservation for the Pawnee Indians by act of Congress approved April 10, 1876, being the range line between ranges 4 and 5 east of the Indian meridian; thence south on said line to a point where the same intersects the middle of the main channel of the Cimarron River; thence up said river, along the middle of the main channel thereof, to a point where the same intersects the range line between range 1 east and range 1 west (being the Indian meridian), which line forms the western boundary of the reservations set apart, respectively, for the Iowa and Kickapoo Indians by Executive orders dated, respectively, August 15, 1883; thence south along said range line or meridian. to a point where the same intersects the right bank of the North Fork of the Canadian River; thence up said river, along the right bank thereof, to a point where the same is intersected by the west line of the reservation occupied by the Citizen band of Pottawatomies and the Absentee Shawnee Indians, set apart under the provisions of the treaty of February 27, 1867, between the United States and the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians, and referred to in the act of Congress approved May 23, 1872; thence south along the said west line of the aforesaid reservation to a point where the same intersects the middle of the main channel of the Canadian River; thence up the said river, along the middle of the main channel thereof, to a point opposite to the place of beginning, and thence north to the place of beginning (saving and excepting 1 acre of land in square form in the northwest corner of section 9, in township 16 north, range 2 west of the Indian meridian in Indian Territory, and also 1 acre of land in the southeast corner of the northwest quarter of section 15, township 16 north, range 7 west of the Indian meridian in the Indian Territory, which last-described 2 acres are hereby reserved for Government use and control), will, at and after the hour of 12 o'clock noon of the 22d day of April next, and not before, be open for settlement, under the terms of and subject to all the conditions, limitations, and restrictions contained in said act of Congress approved March 2, 1889, and the laws of the United States applicable thereto.

And it is hereby expressly declared and made known that no other parts or portions of the lands embraced within the Indian Territory than those herein specifically described and declared to be open to settlement at the time above named and fixed are to be considered as open to settlement under this proclamation or the act of March 2, 1889, aforesaid.

And warning is hereby again expressly given that no person entering upon and occupying said lands before said hour of 12 o'clock noon of the 22d day of April, A. D. 1889, hereinbefore fixed, will ever be permitted to enter any of said lands or acquire any rights thereto, and that the officers of the United States will be required to strictly enforce the provision of the act of Congress to the above effect.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 23d day of March, A. D. 1889, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and thirteenth.

BENJ. HARRISON

By the President:

JAMES G. BLAINE,

Secretary of State.

Benjamin Harrison, Proclamation 288—Opening to Settlement Certain Lands in the Indian Territory Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/205709

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