at ultimate government
ownership. They counselled some measure of compulsory arbitration, urged
that labor unions should become incorporated, so as to be responsible
bodies, and suggested the licensing of railway employees. The
Massachusetts State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration was favorably
mentioned in this report, and became the model for several like boards
in various States.

The labor question and other problems excluded from public thought a
change in our dealings with our Indian wards that should not be
overlooked. Up to 1887 the Indian village communities could, under the
law, hold land only in common. Individual Indians could not, without
abandoning their tribes, become citizens of the United States. Such a
legal status could not but discourage Indians' emergence from barbarism.

A better method was hinted at in an old Act of the Massachusetts General
Court, passed so early as October, 1652.

"It is therefore ordered and enacted by this Court and the authority
thereof, that what landes any of the Indians, within this jurisdiction,
have by possession or improvement, by subdueing of the same, they have
just right thereunto accordinge to that Gen: 1: 28, Chap. 9:1, Psa: 115,
16." This old legislation further provided that any Indians who became
civilized might acquire land by allotment in the white settlements on
the same terms as the English.

In 1887, the so-called "General Allotment" or "Dawes" Act, empowered
the President to allot in severalty a quarter section to each head of an
Indian family and to each other adult Indian one eighth of a section, as
well as to provide for orphaned children and minors, the land to be held
in trust by the United States for twenty-five years. The act further
constituted any allottee or civilized Indian a citizen of the United
States, subject to the civil and criminal laws of the place of his
residence.

The Dawes Act was later so amended as to allot one-eighth of a section
or more, if the reservation were large enough, to each member of a
tribe. The amended law also regulated the descent of Indian lands, and
provided for leases thereof with the approval of the Indian Department.
This last provision was in instances twisted by white men to their
advantage and to the Indians' loss; but on the whole the new system gave
eminent satisfaction and promise.

CHAPTER IX.

NEWEST DIXIE

[1895]

The reader of this history is already aware how forces and events aft