action of Congress.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 18, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 8th instant from the
Secretary of the Interior, submitting a report of the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs and accompanying agreement, made with the Sisseton and
Wahpeton bands of Dakota or Sioux Indians, for the purchase and release
of the surplus lands in the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, in the
States of North and South Dakota, the negotiations for said purchase and
release having been conducted under the authority contained in the fifth
section of the general allotment act of February 8, 1887 (24 U.S.
Statutes at Large, p. 388), which provides, among other things, that the
"purchase shall not be complete until ratified by Congress, and the form
and manner of executing such release shall also be prescribed by
Congress."

This agreement involves a departure from the terms of the general
allotment act in at least one important particular. It gives to each
member of the tribe 160 acres of land without regard to age or sex,
while the general law gives this allotment only to heads of families.
There are, I think, serious objections to the basis adopted in the
general law, especially in its application to married women; but if the
basis of the agreement herewith submitted is accepted, it would, I
think, result in some cases, where there are large families of minor
children, in excessive allotments to a single family. Whatever is done
in this case will of course become in some sense a precedent in the
cases yet to be dealt with.

Perhaps the question of the payment by the United States of the
annuities which were forfeited by the act of February 16, 1863
(12 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 652), should not have been considered in
connection with this negotiation for the cession of these lands. But it
appears that a refusal to consider this claim would have terminated the
negotiation, and if the claim is just its allowance has already been
too long delayed. The forfeiture declared by the act of 1863 unjustly
included the annuities of certain Indians of these bands who were not
only guilty of no fault, but who rendered meritorious services in the
armies of the United States in the suppression of the Sioux outbreak
and in the War of the Rebellion.

The agreement submitted, as I understand, provides for the payment of
the annuities justly due to thes