Chapter CCVI. *to provide Homes far the Pottawatomie and Absentee Shawnee Indians in the Indian Territory.*May 23, 1872. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*, That the Secretary of the InteriorAllotments of land to be made to each member
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CHAP. CCVI.— An Act *to provide Homes far the Pottawatomie and Absentee Shawnee Indians in the Indian Territory.*May 23, 1872. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*, That the Secretary of the InteriorAllotments of land to be made to each member of rhe Pottawatomie citizen band;be, and be is hereby, authorized and directed to issue certificates by which allotments of land lying within the thirty-mile square tract heretofore selected for the Pottawatomie Indians, and lying next west of the Seminole reservation in the Indian Territory, shall be made to each member of the Pottawatomie band, known as the Pottawatomie citizen band, as follows, viz. :
To each head of a family, and to each other member twenty-one yearsquantity to each. of age, not more than one-quarter section, and to each minor of the tribe not more than eighty acres; and such allotments shall be made to include, as far as may be practicable for each framily, the improvements Which they may have made. Certificates of such allotments shall be made in severalty,Certificates of allotments, how made, and to state what. specifying the names of individuals to whom they have been assigned, and that said tracts are set apart for the exclusive and perpetual use and benefit of such assignees and their heirs.
Until otherwise provided by law suchLands to be exempt, &o., and alienable, &c. tracts shall be exempt from levy, taxation, or sale, and shall be alienable in fee, or leased or otherwise disposed of only to the United States, or to persons of Indian blood, lawfully residing within said Territory with permission of the President and under such regulations as the Secretary of the Interior shall prescribe : *Provided*, That such allotments shall be made to such ofResidence. the above-described persons as have resided or shall hereafter reside three years continuously on such reservation, and that the cost of such lands to theCost, and how paid.
United States shall be paid from any fund now held, or which may be here after held by the United States for the benefit of such Indians, and charged as a part of their distributive share, or shall be paid for by said Indians FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS. Sess. II. Ch. 206, 207, 213. 1872.160Indians to acquire no more rights than, &c.;before such certificates are issued : *Provided* Said Pottawatomie Indians shall neither acquire nor exercise under the laws of the United States any rights or privileges in said Indian territory, other than those enjoyed by the members of the Indian tribes lawfully residing therein.
And for the may enforce usages;protection of the rights of persons and property among themselves, they may enforce the laws and usages heretofore enforced among them as an Indian tribe, not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United entitled to representation.States, and shall be entitled to equitable representation in the general territorial council, and subject to the general laws which it may legally enact. Sec. 2. Allotments of land to the Absentee Shawnee Indians;When it shall be shown to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Interior that any Indian of pure or mixed blood of the Absentee Shawnees, being a head of a family, or a person over twenty-one years of age, has resided, continuously, for the term of three years within the thirty-mile square tract lying west of the Seminole reservation in the Indian territory, and has made substantial improvements thereon, it shall to whom and and how made. &c.be the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to issue to said Indian a certificate of allotment for eighty acres of land, to include, so far as may be practicable, his or her improvements, together with an addition of twenty acres for each child under twenty-one years of age belonging to the family of said Indian, which certificate shall include the same provisions as are included in the certificates of allotments of lands to be issued tinder the provisions of the first section of this act.
Approved, May 23, 1872.