25 U.S.C. § 336 — Allotments to Indians making settlement

submitted 135 years ago by ch. 383 to r/title-25-INDIANS · 275 words · no verdicts yet

in plain englishAI-generated · not legal advice

An Indian entitled to an allotment who settles on unclaimed U.S. public land can apply for that land. The land is capped per person. The limit is 40 acres of irrigable land, 80 acres of farmland, or 160 acres of grazing land. Land officers get paid from Treasury funds for handling these applications.

If you are an Indian entitled to an allotment under existing law, and you settle on surveyed or unsurveyed U.S. public land that no one else has claimed, you can apply to the local land office for that district. The office must allot that land to you and to your children, the same way allotments are made to Indians who live on reservations. The President decides how big these allotments on the public domain can be, but they can never be bigger than: 40 acres of irrigable land, or 80 acres of non-irrigable farmland, or 160 acres of non-irrigable grazing land, per person. If you settled on land that hadn't been surveyed yet, your allotment gets adjusted once the survey happens, so it matches the surveyed boundaries. You then receive a patent (a land title) for the land, with the same restrictions that apply under sections 348 and 349 of this title. The local land office's officers still get paid the same fees they would have earned if the land had been claimed under the ordinary public-land laws. Those fees come out of Treasury money not already set aside for something else. The Secretary of the Interior prepares a statement of the account owed to the officers and certifies it to the Secretary of the Treasury, who then pays it.

the actual law source: uscode.house.gov ↗public domain

Where any Indian entitled to allotment under existing laws shall make settlement upon any surveyed or unsurveyed lands of the United States not otherwise appropriated, he or she shall be entitled, upon application to the local land office for the district in which the lands are located, to have the same allotted to him or her and to his or her children in manner as provided by law for allotments to Indians residing upon reservations, and such allotments to Indians on the public domain as herein provided shall be made in such areas as the President may deem proper, not to exceed, however, forty acres of irrigable land or eighty acres of nonirrigable agricultural land or one hundred sixty acres of nonirrigable grazing land to any one Indian; and when such settlement is made upon unsurveyed lands the grant to such Indians shall be adjusted upon the survey of the lands so as to conform thereto, and patent shall be issued to them for such lands in the manner and with the restrictions provided in sections 348 and 349 of this title. And the fees to which the officers of such local land office would have been entitled had such lands been entered under the general laws for the disposition of the public lands shall be paid to them from any moneys in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, upon a statement of an account in their behalf for such fees by the Secretary of the Interior or such officer as he may designate, and a certification of such account to the Secretary of the Treasury by the Secretary of the Interior.

Source credit: (Feb. 28, 1891, ch. 383, § 4, 26 Stat. 795; June 25, 1910, ch. 431, § 17, 36 Stat. 860; 1946 Reorg. Plan No. 3, § 403, eff. July 16, 1946, 11 F.R. 7876, 60 Stat. 1100.)

history & why it existsrecord from the source credit

1891Enacted · Act of Feb. 28, 1891, ch. 383 · 26 Stat. 795
1910Amended · Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 431 · 36 Stat. 860

A history note hasn’t been published yet. The record shows enactment by ch. 383 on 1891-02-28.

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