Chapter XXVI. for the Settlement of certain Classes of “Private Land Claims” within the Limits of the “Baron De Bastrop Grant,” and for allowing Preemptions to certain actual Settlers, in the Event of the final Adjudication of the Title of the said De Bastrop in Favor of the United States
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Chap. XXVI.— An Act for the Settlement of certain Classes of “Private Land Claims” within the Limits of the “Baron De Bastrop Grant,” and for allowing Preemptions to certain actual Settlers, in the Event of the final Adjudication of the Title of the said De Bastrop in Favor of the United States.March 3, 1851. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,* That in the event In the event of an adjudication in favor of the United States respecting the “Baron De Bastrop” claim, notice to be given, and claimants allowed to file notices. of a final adjudication by the court in favor of the United States, on the “Baron De Bastrop” claim in Louisiana, under the act of Congress, approved on the seventeenth June, one thousand eight hundred and forty-four, entitled “An Act to provide for the adjustment of land claims within the States of Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and in those parts of the States of Mississippi and Alabama south of the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers,” the register and receiver for the Ouachita Land District, Louisiana, shall give public notice of the fact in some newspaper circulating in the vicinity of the land, and within twelve months from 1844, ch. 95. and after the date of the first publication of such notice, it shall and may be lawful for any original claimants of the classes hereinafter mentioned in this section of the present act, their heirs or legal representatives, to file with the aforesaid register and receiver notices descriptive of their claims, and specifying their precise localities and area, with the testimony in support of the same. *First:* All bona fide claimants by purchase from De Bastrop, or Classes of claimants. those holding under him, where the land has been occupied and cultivated for twenty years. *Second:* All bona fide claimants of “head rights,” for not exceeding six hundred and forty acres, their heirs or legal representatives, where the original claimant came over and settled the land under the contract between the Spanish government and De Bastrop, even though the land was not actually sold or conveyed to such original claimants by the said De Bastrop. *Third:* All bona fide claimants for not exceeding six hundred and forty acres, as actual settlers prior to the twentieth December, eighteen hundred and three, where they have held such continued possession as to show that they identified themselves with the ownership of the land. 598THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS.
Sess. II. Ch. 32. 1851. Sec. 2. *And be it further enacted,* That after the expiration of After twelve months, a report to be made respecting the merits of said claims. twelve months aforesaid, it shall be the duty of the register and receiver, pursuant to such instructions as may be given by the commissioner of the general land office, to make a report with the notices, and all the testimony, to the general land office, specifying all such cases as in their opinion came within the principles recognized under the several heads mentioned in the foregoing section, and which according to those principles ought to be confirmed, and such as in their opinion ought to be rejected.
Sec. 3. *And be it further enacted,* That it shall be the duty of the Report to be laid before Congress.Claims recommended for confirmation to be reserved from sale. commissioner of the general land office to lay the report aforesaid before Congress for final action thereon, and all claims recommended for confirmation shall be reserved from sale until the final action of Congress on the report aforesaid, and all claims reported as rejected shall be treated as other public lands.
Sec. 4. *And be it further enacted,* That the claims numbers forty, Those reported as rejected to be treated as other public Lands.Claims 40, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, and 51, favorably reported on by Daniel J. Sutton, confirmed in the event of an adjudication in favor of the United States.1823, ch. 18.1820, ch. 87.Confirmation to operate only as a relinquishment of title. forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, and fifty-one, favorably reported on by Daniel J.
Sutton, as register for the district north of Red River, Louisiana, and entered in the first class of his report, dated first January, eighteen hundred and twenty-one, but on account of being within the limits of the Bastrop grant, have been excluded from the confirmatory provisions of the second section of the act of Congress, approved February twenty-eight, eighteen hundred and twenty-three, entitled “An Act supplementary to the several acts for the adjustment of land claims in the State of Louisiana,” be, and the same shall be held confirmed, in the event of the final adjudication of the Bastrop claim in favor of the United States as aforesaid: *Provided,* That this confirmation shall only operate as a relinquishment of title on the part of the United States, and shall in no way prejudice or affect any sale, or other right existing at the time when the survey shall be executed, of the claims hereby conditionally confirmed; and in the Patents to issue. event of the final adjudication of the Bastrop grant as aforesaid, and upon the return of approved plats of survey for the claims specified in this section, relinquishment patents shall be issued as in other cases.
Sec. 5. *And be it further enacted,* That in the event of a final Preemption right given to certain settlers on said claim. adjudication, in favor of the United States, of the Bastrop claim, as contemplated by the first section of this act, every bona fide settler on any part of said land, at the time of the extension of the public surveys over the same, who is a man of family, widow, or single man over twenty-one years of age, and an actual housekeeper thereon, and who, but for the reservation heretofore made of said land for the claim of the said Bastrop, would have been entitled to a right of preemption under some one of the preemption laws, be, and he is hereby authorized to enter the quarter section so resided on, or by adjoining legal subdivisions, so as to include his residence and land cultivated or improved, any number of acres not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres, upon making proof of such settlement, housekeeping, &c., to Proof to be made within one year after surveys are extended over said land. the satisfaction of the register and receiver, as in ordinary cases, at any time within a year after the public surveys are so extended over said land.
Approved, March 3, 1851.