Full text transcription of pages 1-2

{Begin handwritten}(May 1879){End handwritten}
Prepare to Meet us
AT CHETOPA, KAN.
A LARGE AREA OF THE BEAUTIFUL
INDIAN
TERRITORY OPEN TO HOMESTEADERS.

In the above Map, the location of Chetopa shows it to be the best point to start from, as well as the nearest to all points North and East. The black line running southwest from Chetops is the Stage Line to the public Lands. The boundaries of this land will be clearly given by our Superintendent of Locations, when you arrive at Chetopa.

Now is the time to Secure a Home on the finest Land ever offered to the People by the Government.

In looking over the records of the General Land Office at Washington, by eminent lawyers and land-men, it was discovered that 17,500,000 acres of the most fertile part of the Territory belong intact to the government, and are not included in the Indian reservations proper.

Since the public have learned these facts, thousands of them are flocking toward the Territory, and taking up their homes, and the tide will continue till every vestige of the public domain is taken. Now that the people of the United States know that they have rights in the Territory, they will go en masse, and no stop can be put to them on the plea of the land belonging to the Indians.

The Kanass City Times says: "It is probable that at this writing fully ten thousand immigrants are upon the line of march in the Missouri valley, converging toward Southern Kansas, to occupy the rich and fertile lands of the Indian Territory, from which the Indian title has been extinguished by government purchase. The Black Hills was forbidden ground to the pale-face until the development of the precious metals incited the spontaneous hegira of 1876, but there is no treaty barrier to the present movement--and there can be no legal prohibition to the occupation of government lands from which the Indian title has been extinguished, notwithstanding the telegraphic information from Washington that the Cabinet regards it as an open question. There are millions of those idle acres, as finely timbered, as well watered, and the most fertile on the continent, awaiting the subduing hand of civilization, and offering, also, if report be true, mineral resources in lavish abundance. It would not at all surprise us if the valley of the Cimarron and Canadian rivers should yield as plentifully of the precious ores as the carbonate hills of Leadville and the rocky ribbed hills of the Pacific slope."

For the purpose of settling up this unoccupied government land, the Indian Territory Colonization Society, with headquarters at Chetopa, Kansas, are sending men out daily to this promised land. They have already sent out over seventy families, established a town site, established a stage line, and by the 15th of May will have a saw mill, grist mill and newspaper on that ground.

Chetopa is a town of 2,000 inhabitants, and is the last station on the M., K. & T. in Kansas, before entering the Territory. The country around it is a garden spot in Kansas, and living is cheaper than in any portion of the State, and we insure our Territory immigrants the lowest of prices in outfitting them. For full particulars as to cost of outfitting rates, &c., address the Society, at Chetopa, or at any of the branch offices in St. Louis, Chicago or Quincy.

Another reason why you should come to Chetopa; it is sixty-two miles nearer than any other point in southern Kansas from Kansas City, and eighty-five miles nearer from St. Louis, and necessarily you save that much railroad fare. In addition to this, Chetopa is only seventy five miles from the land, on a direct route southwest, while on other routes you must travel southeast to intercept the Chetopa road. It is the only practicable route to the land, and by taking the through line from Chicago, and the M., K. & T. at Hannibal, or if you come to St. Louis, you take the M., K. & T., and go through without change of cars. The object of the Society is to put you there as cheap as possible, and we guarante the very best of rates, and will conduct you to the land.

Members of our organization leave Chetopa every week, with colonists, and stage lines run every other day, insuring you a speedy and safe transit.

Now is the time to move, that you may get your home staked out and house erected, and be ready for fall plowing. By moving at this time you will be ready for farming in the spring; can have a large wheat crop, and be self-sustaining in one year. This land is finely timbered' and finely watered, with veins of coal and other minerals cropping out.

People going to the Territory by wagon will also find Chetopa the best route, for here you can lay in a full supply of everything needed, at the very lowest prices. It is only one days staging and two days wagon travel from Chetopa. Remember, we send a guide with any party of fifteen or over from Chetopa; and also remember we leave Chetopa every Thursday of each week with colonists. Thus, by leaving Hannibal or St. Louis every Tuesday evening, we arrive in Chetopa the next day after dinner, which will give you ample time to purchase what you desire. We also give reduced rates on freight as well as passage. Mr. GEO. W. McFARLIN, who is superintendent of the colony, has already gone forward with over 100 people who have gone to stay and locate a town, which is only seventy-five miles from Chetopa, pleasantly situated in a healthy near the confluence of the two forks of a large river, with good water power, plenty of timber, and excellent building rock. Mr. McFARLIN and others of the society, who have lived in the Territory and have rights of citizenship, are perfectly familiar with every section of the country, and will guide you and give you all verbal information when you arrive at Chetopa, where the headquarters of the Indian Territory Colonization Society can be found, and where all letters of a general nature should be addressed. In order to secure the aid of our society, and become a member, address a letter to us enclosing a stamp, when we will secure you a ticket and freight rates to Chetopa.

We sell round trip tickets from Chicago, Hannibal, St. Louis, Moberly, Highy or Sedalia, good for 40 days, which will give you ample time to explore, lay a claim and return for your family. Considering the unprecedented rush already in this direction, in this direction, we would advise you to set at once, if you desire to secure either valuable timber or mineral lands.

An expedition will leave Hannibal the second Tuesday in May. It will also leave St. Louis on the same date, and meet at Sedalia Wednesday morning, May 14th.

For further particulars, call on or address the INDIAN TERRITORY COLONIZATION SOCIETY, Chetopa, Kansas, or Hannibal, Mo.

GEO. W. McFARLIN, Sup't in Territory. W. H. KERNS, General Manager.

Parties who desire, can call on or address the General Manager at HANNIBAL, MISSOURI, where all needed information can be obtained. Headquarters at National Hotel.

READ THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS BILL.

THE BEAUTIFUL
INDIAN TERRITORY OPEN FOR SETTLEMENT!

Over 17,500,000 Acres of Land within the Heart of the Territory subject to Homestead and Pre-emption by any Citizen of the Government.

People are Rushing towards this Land in Crowds, and Colonies are Forming in Every Place.

The Indian Territory Colonization Society, with Headquarters at Chetopa, Kansas, will Conduct any Party to the Land, which is Only about Seventy Miles from Chetopa.

The Best Way for you to Do is for a Number in your Community to Organize, and We will Meet You, Secure you Rate on Railroad and Conduct you Through, FREE OF CHARGE.

Soldiers Homestead Lands can be secured, and it is the only body of Hom?tead Land in the United States. The entire Tract has been surveyed by the Government, and recorded. It was purchased from the Indians in 1866, and is open to every citizen. The Indians have greeted the new comers with a welcome, and are doing all they can to encourage the immigration, and they are only too glad to know that there is plenty of Public Land so near them.

REMEMBER you can or secure Low Rates by addressing the Society at Hannibal or Chetopa. Special Low Rates given at St. Louis and Keokuk and intermediate points on the Mississippi River by way of Hannibal to Chetopa, with First-Class Passage on the Fast Running Palace Steamers of the Keokuk and Northern Line Packet Company.

In order that all the facts may be clearly understood as to bow the 14,000,000 acres of land became public, and why they are now as much open to homestead and pre-emption as any other government lands, we give below a statement recently prepared by Col. Boudinot, who is probably more thoroughly informed on the subject than any other man in the country. The following is the statement:

Statement of Col. E. C. Boudinot about the Law and the Facts.

First--In reply, I will say that the United States, by treaties made in 1866, purchased from Indian tribes, in the Indian Territory, about 14,000,000 acres of land.

Second--These lands were bought from the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws and Chickasaws; the Cherokees sold no lands by their treaty of 1866.

The Creeks, by their treaty of 1866, sold to the United States 3,250,560 acres, for the sum of $975,168. The Seminnles, by their treaty of 1866, sold to the United States 2,169,080 acres for the sum of $325,362.

The Choctaws and Chickasawa, by their treaty of 1866, sold to the United States the "leased lands" lying west of 98 deg. of west longitude, for the sum of $300,000. The number of acres in this tract is not specified in the treaty, but it contains about 7,000,000 acres. (See 14th vol. Statutes at Large, pages 756,769 and 786)

Of these ceded lands the United States has since appropriated for the use of the Sac and Foxes 479,667 acres, and for the Pottowotomies 575,877 acres, making a total of 1,035, 544 acres. These Indians occupy these lands by virtue of treaties and acts of Congress. By an unratified agreement the Wichita Indians are now occupying 743,610 acres of these ceded lands. I presume some action will be taken by the United States Government to permanently locate the Wichitas upon the lands they now occupy. The title, however, to these lands is still in the United States.

By executive order, Kiows, Comanche, Arrapahoe, and other wild Indians, have been brought upon a portion of the ceded lands, but such lands are a part of the public domain of the United States, and have all been surveyed and sectionized.

A portion of these 14,000,000 acres of land, however, has not been appropriated by the United States for the use of other Indians, and in all probability never will be.

Third--These unappropriated lands are situated immediately west of the 97 deg. of west longitude, and south of the Cherokee territory. They amount to several millions of acres, and are as valuable as any in the territory. The soil is well adapted for the production of corn, wheat and other cereals. It is unsurpassed for grazing, and is well watered and timbered.

Fourth--The United States have an absolute and unembarrassed title to every acre of these 14,000,000 acres, unless it be to the 1,054,544 acres now occupied by the Sac and Fox and Pottowottomie Indians. The Indian title has been extinguished. The articles of the treaties with the Creeks and Seminoles, by which they sold their lands, begin with the statement that the lands are ceded "in compliance with the desire of the United States to locate other Indians and freedmen thereon." By the express terms of these treaties the lands bought by the United States were not intended for the exclusive use of "other Indians" as has been so often asserted. They were hought at much for the negroes of the country as for Indians.

The commissioner of the general land office, Gen. Williamson, in his report for 1878, computes the area of the Indian Territory at 44,154,210 acres, of which, he says, 17,150,250 are unsurveyed; these lands be designates as "Public Lands!" The honorable commissioner has fallen into a natural error; he has included in his computation the lands of the Cherokees west of 96 degrees west longitude, and the Chickasaw Nation which, though surveyed, can in no sense be deemed "public lands." The only public lands in the Territory are those marked on this map, and amount, as before stated, to about, fourteen million acres.

Whatever may have been the desire or intention of the United States Government in 1866, to locate Indians or negroes upon these lands, it is certain that no such desire or intention exists in 1879. The negro since that date, has become a citizen of the United States, and Congress has recently enacted laws which practically forbid the removal of any more Indians into the Territory. Two years ago Mr. Mills, of Texas, caused a provision to be inserted is the Indian appropriation bill, prohibiting the removal of the Sioux Indians into the Indian Territory; a project at that time contemplated by the Interior Department, and a similar provision in the Indian appropriation bill of last winter, the removal of any Indians from Arizona or New Mexico into the Indian Territory is forbidden. These laws practically leave several millions of acres of the richest lands on the continent free from Indian title or occupancy, and an integral part of the public domain.

To save the time which would be required to answer the many letters I am constantly receiving upon this subject, I have made a plain but accurate map, which I enclose with this letter. I shall be glad to furnish maps and such further information as may be required.

Very respectfully yours, etc.,

F. C. Boudinot.

WHAT A NEW YORK PAPER SAYS.

[New York Graphie, Feb. 27, 1879.]

The time has come when this Territory should cast away its death shroud and be opened for civilized development. The tide of emigration which has so long been setting towards the regions west of the Missouri, and which has enormously increased in the past two or three years, encounters an artificial barrier in this vast and inviting region, wedged in as it is between the busy States of Kansas, Arkansas and Taxas, and embracing an area of 69,000 square miles--considerably more than the State of Missouri. The agricultural resources of the Territory are great, the soil being extraordinarily fertile. It possesses great mineral wealth, and a large influx of settlers is predicted, should the measures now pending result in opening the Territory to settlers, as provision would then be made for the protection of life and property by the establishment of an United States Court and other accompaniments of civilization. It is really absurd that 41,000,000 acres of land, having a magnificent soil and climate, should be fenced in from development. No injustice should be done, and none, as we understand it, is contemplated to the Indians now inhabiting the Territory. They should have a goodly amount of land reserved to each of them in severally, and care should be taken that their tribal lands should not be taken from them without due equivalent being paid. But should this country be opened school houses and churches would spring up as they have done in Kansas, Texas and the other Western States, and education and religion would are long lift the Indian, whose capacity for civilized culture has already been widely demonstrated in the Territory, into the plane of intelligent manhood. Within the Indian Territory there is practically at present a foreign government; its people are citizens of the United States and have neither the privileges nor the responsibilities of citizens. They consist of portions of a score or more of Indian tribes lonely connected by considerations of race, owning all the great domain together, but without individual title or ownership, and although they have reached a commendable degree of civilization, the general grade of intelligence among them is low, and the barriers of isolation which have been set up absolutely prevent, as they were probably intended to do, the spread of the customs and improvements of civilization. By the census of 1870 the total number of inhabitants was 68,152, of whom only 2,407 were whitest 6,378 were colored (mainly slaves previous to our civil war), and 59,367 were Indians. In the eight years since these figures were compiled an immense immigration has poured into all the States and Territories surrounding the Indian Territory, and yet w?e none of them is more favored in respect to soil, climate and general adaption to civilized progress, this land of the red man shows practically no growth in population, an official estimate in 1877 giving only 68,703 inhabitants, scarcely any increase in those eight years. These facts are forcibly set forth in the report of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Forty-fourth Congress, to whom was referred a bill to provide for the organization of the Indian Territory under territorial laws, and a bill is now on its passage through Congress for the organization of the Indian Territory into the Territory of Oklahoma, with the same representation in Congress as is accorded to other citizens, with a Governor, Legislative Council, Courts, etc. It is also provided that each person who is a member of any tribe occupying a reservation in the Territory shall be entitled to a homestead of 160 acres of land in the reservation of the tribe in which such person is a member. Absolute title of ownership shall be given from the United States, with a condition prohibiting the sale of the lands by the patentees for a period of twenty years. The remainder of the lands, except such as shall be reserved for school purposes, shall be allotted in severalty to the members of the tribe, and in return for the division among them individually of this property now held in common and comparatively useless the Indians are only asked to give up their aboriginal tribal relations and accept the relations of citizens. Colonel Elias C. Boudinot, one of the Cherokee Nation, is a strong advocate of the formation of Territorial Government, and in a recent letter be says: "There is not an intelligent Indian in the Indian Territory unconnected with the villainous rings who have plundered the Indians for the past ten years, but will heartily endorse the conclusion that the time has come when the Territory should be opened to civilization." He believes that this is the inexorable logic of events. He says all the sentimentalism of Quakers and Utopians, all the selfish gered of the Indian demagogues who swarm here every session of Congress in the capacity of Indian delegations, and the concentrated power of the Indian ring cannot prevent it. * * * *

With the exception of the reduced reservation of the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole and Choctaw nations, all of the Territory has been surveyed and sectionized. The total area of the Territory is 41,098,398 acres, of which about only 15,149, 709 us sectionized. About 15,000,000 acres of the 41,000,000 belong absolutely to the United States, having been bought and paid for under the treaties of 1866 with the Choctaws, Chickasaw, Crocks and Seminoles. All of this has been surveyed. Some two millions of this has been set aside as a reservation for the Wichitas, Pottawatomies and Sacs and Foxes. There are 12,000,000 acres of excellent soil in the Territory which is "public land." The Indian title has been extinguished. Congress has this session passed a law forbidding the removal of any more Indian from Arizonia or New Mexico to this Territory; while the Indian Department has abandoned the idiotic policy of removing Indians from the northern Territories into the Indian Territory. Now, what are you going to do with these 12,000,000 acres of rich land--as large in area as the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and capable of sustaining as many people. This comundrum will be answered by the progressive white population of this country within the next three years, whether Congress legislates or not for the Indian Territory.

For Full Particulars in regard to Rates, Routes of Travel, Cost of Outfitting, &c., address all letters to the Indian Territory Colonization Society at Chetopa, Kan., or at the Branch Office Hannibal, Mo.

W. H. KERNS, General Manager.

READ THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THIS BILL.