Federal Decision Settles Chelan Land Claims
After long legal disputes, the federal government issues a ruling on Indigenous land rights near Lake Chelan, granting acreage to three Native leaders.
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.
The famous Chelan Indian cases have at last passed upon by the United States authorities. Secretary of the Interior Noble decided the cases of Long Jim, Chelan Jim and Christopher Robinson and others in favor of the Indians. The legal questions involved were alike, and the secretary handled both cases in the same decision. The lands involved are in the Waterville district, in the vicinity of Lake Chelan, and the red men sought to take the lands in severalty under the Moses treaty. All of the land in controversy was formerly embraced in the Columbia Indian reservation. Approximately 1,000 acres of land have been given to the three Indians above mentioned. A portion of the land asked for by Long Jim joins the townsite of Chelan, but the townsite itself is not touched. The attorneys for the Indians, of whom R. W. Starr, of Waterville, was the counsel in this state, based their claims upon the Moses treaty, entered into upon the 7th day of July, 1883, between Chief Moses and other Indians and the United States government.
“Whether Long Jim will lay out and plat an addition to the town of Chelan does not yet appear, but he is undoubtedly just now a 'big Injun.'”
This decision reflects the complex and often contentious history of land rights and the Dawes Act era, where 'allotment' policies were used to break up tribal reservations. The proximity of these lands to the modern townsite of Chelan highlights the enduring legacy of 19th-century treaty claims in shaping the geography of modern Washington.
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