Washington Asked Congress for $34,500 to Finish Carving Up the Colville Reservation
An 1894 dispatch from the capital details the surveying and allotment machinery behind opening the northern Colville Reservation to settlement — right down to the promise that the cost would be repaid 'from the proceeds of the lands when sold.'
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Washington City, July 13. [Special.]— The secretary of the treasury has transmitted to congress an estimate of a deficiency of $34,500 in the appropriation for opening a part of the Colville reservation, which has been submitted by the commissioner of Indian affairs, and concurred in by the commissioner of the general land office, as being necessary to complete the survey and allotment of the northern portion of that reservation. The secretary of the interior has approved the estimate and requests early and favorable action by congress.
The commissioner of the general land office reports that under the act of July 1, 1892, providing for the opening of a part of the Colville reservation, by which the sum of $35,000 was appropriated for the purpose of making allotments and selections in said act provided, including surveys of the lands provided to be vacated and restored to the public domain by departmental authorization, three contracts were awarded for the survey of the necessary standard, reservation, exterior and township lines in the ceded portion, the total liability being $11,000. These contracts were approved by the general land office May 17, 1893, the returns of the surveys being required to be filed with the surveyor general June 30, 1893. The commissioner further states that the status of these contracts is shown in the following telegram from the surveyor general, dated May 15, 1894:
'Returns under contract 404 will be transmitted on 7th; 405, in five weeks; field notes not in.'
The commissioner also states that the cost of executing the subdivisional surveys within the ceded portions of the reservation is estimated at $38,500, which, with the total cost of the preparation of all of the plats and field notes in quadruplicate and examination of all the work in the field ($4,000 and $5,000 respectively), will make an aggregate cost of $47,500. Deducting the estimated cost of the execution of the surveys provided for in the contracts named, $11,000, from the appropriation of $35,000, an apparent balance remains of $24,000, from which must be deducted the expense of making the necessary examination in the field under the three contracts, estimated at $2,500, and the cost of the preparation of field notes and plats of survey of the standard reservation and exterior lines, estimated at $1,000, total $3,500, thus leaving an available balance of $20,500 for subdivisional surveys.
From the estimate of the general land office for subdivisional surveys and the expenses incident thereto it appears that the appropriation of $35,000 made by the act above referred to is $27,000 less than will be required for that purpose alone, besides leaving the cost of the allotments and selections wholly unprovided for. The commissioner requests authority to instruct the surveyor general to award contracts to competent and reliable deputy surveyors for subdivisional surveys of such townships within the ceded portions of the reservation as may be found on examination by his office and the surveyor general of the original transcripts of the field notes of the survey of the exterior township lines to be suitable for subdivision, and also to allow for the execution of said work the special maximum rates of mileage where the lines of said subdivision surveys pass over the lands that are mountainous, heavily timbered or covered with dense growth, as allowed by the act of March 3, for the survey of lands of said character in the state of Washington.
The commissioner of Indian affairs in a letter to the secretary of the interior states that he has no objection to the plan proposed by the commissioner of the general land office with regard to the subdivisional surveys, so far as the state of the appropriation therefor will permit. He suggests, however, that it would be desirable to have all these subdivisional surveys executed without unnecessary delay, and that a sufficient amount for making the allotments should be provided. He therefore urges, in view of the deficiency of $27,000 reported by the commissioner of the general land office and of the necessity of having from $5,000 to $7,500 available for making the allotments, that congress be asked to appropriate $34,500, in order that the work may be done promptly. This sum which congress is asked to appropriate at the present time will be reimbursable from the proceeds of the lands when sold, as provided by the original act.
“This sum which congress is asked to appropriate at the present time will be reimbursable from the proceeds of the lands when sold, as provided by the original act.”
The Colville Reservation still exists today — home to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, twelve member nations — but the allot-review-sell machinery described here permanently fragmented Indigenous land across the West. The 1892 act tracked the Dawes Act's logic: survey it, allot it, and sell off the 'surplus,' a process that stripped millions of acres from Native nations and still shapes land and sovereignty fights in Washington today.
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