employed on a salary basis covering meetings or have fixed tours of duty on a day, week, month, season, or annual basis. 2. No agency personnel in realty are paid from tribal funds in part or whole. 3. See comment to item No. 1, above. 4. Committee has no approval authority, but merely recommends after physical inspection of premises. 5. See comment in item No. 1, above. 6. See comment to item No. 1, above. The Bureau has approved when warrantable and justifiable, all tribal employment of personnel in connection with every phase of tribal responsibility. 7. The tribe did operate the agency leasing program as an enter prise for several years until July 1, 1956, when the duties were reassumed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Primarily, the assumption was perhaps undertaken due to the fact appropriations were limited insofar as realty personnel was concerned from gratuity funds. The responsibility and need have since been recognized and, presently, four full-time, civil-service employees constitute the realty staff, with an additional employee detailed locally to assist in putting into effect provisions of the act of 1954, Public Law 671. The enterprise above cited entailed surface leasing of tribal and allotted land for agriculture or farm-pasture purposes, including the advertising publicly of tracts available prior to determining acceptability, accomplished by tribal personnel for the approval of the superintendent. The tribal employees worked under the supervision of a civil-service, gratuitypaid realty officer. Negotiated sales, exchanges, and gift conveyances between members of the tribe were also accomplished, as were easements granting rights-of-way. The tribe also consented to paying the salary of a civil-service employee to handle subsurface leases for the exploration and development of oil and gas production. It is, perhaps, the feeling of the tribe that they are entitled to the service paid from gratuity funds in the same manner as other reservations and Indians receive elsewhere throughout the Nation. The Bureau is ready, willing, and able to surrender management when the tribe indicates such a desire and can assure capability in full responsibility and control of their assets. 8. (a) Yes, since funds were made available from gratuity appropriations. (b) Bureau personnel are career workers having high qualifications commensurate with responsibilities of various levels. They are not influenced in decisions by family ties, blood relationship, or tribal politics. They are able to enforce and function in the manner prescribed as custodians and trustees as promulgated by lawmakers charged with the responsibilities of protecting the assets of our first citizens who need assistance to the credit of our great Nation. EXHIBIT V-UINTAH AND OURAY Individually owned land [No. T.- Number of transactions. Ac=Acreage] DISPOSALS-REMOVAL FROM INDIAN BUREAU JURISDICTION BY PLACING OF UNRESTRICTED FEE-SIMPLE TITLE IN OWNERS 30451-58-37 EXHIBIT IV.-UINTAH AND OURAY-Continued Individually owned land-Continued [No. T.-Number of transections. Ac.-Acreage] DISPOSALS-REMOVAL FROM INDIAN BUREAU JURISDICTION BY PLACING OF UNRESTRICTED FEF-SIMPLE TITLE IN OWNERS VIII. PORTLAND AREA OFFICE 1. COLVILLE AGENCY DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, Ion JAMES E. MURRAY, Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SENATOR MURRAY: Enclosed in duplicate, in accordance with your letter request of April 17, 1958, is the report on land transactions under the jurisdiction of the Colville Indian Agency comprising the Colville and Spokane Indian Reservations. 1 Also enclosed are maps of each reservation and, as a matter of general interest, a history of the Colville Reservation as contained in the regional solicitor's memorandum of October 15, 1956. Further, the narrative dated March 18, 1958, in support of our budget estimate, which sets out matters related to your questionnaire. It is to be noted that the breakdown in the report relating to various types of disposal actions on allotted lands is all inclusive, no distinction being made as to public domain allotments. Your interest in this matter is appreciated and we hope this report will be helpful to you. Sincerely yours, FLOYD H. PHILLIPS, Superintendent. A. COLVILLE RESERVATION COLVILLE INDIAN RESERVATION-MINERAL RIGHTS UNDER STOCKRAISING HOMESTEADS-BLM FILES AREA ADMINISTRATOR, AREA I, BLM, This is in reply to your memorandum of July 31 transmitting the memorandum of July 27 in which the manager of the land office, State of Washington, inquired as to whether the land office or the superintendent of the Colville Indian Reservation has jurisdiction and the responsibility of administration over the mineral rights on lands, within the Colville Indian Reservation, which were patented under the act of December 29, 1916, said act reserving the minerals to the Government. 1 On file with the committee for reference purposes. These mineral rights came into being through operation of the act of December 29, 1916, known as the Stock-Raising Homestead Act. Under this act the surplus lands classified as grazing or crop raising lands within the Colville Indian Reservation were opened to stock-raising homestead entry. Section 9 of that act provided that all mineral rights in the lands entered and patented under the act were reserved in the United States. In this connection it should be noted that the surplus lands of the reservation were created by operation of the act of March 22, 1906, which, in part, provided for the allotment of certain lands to the member Indians and the creation of other reserved areas for specified purposes, after which the balance of the lands within the confines of the reservation were declared surplus and subject to classification and disposal under the public land laws by proclamation of the President. The surplus lands were temporarily withdrawn from further entry under the public land laws and the general mining laws by departmental order of September 19, 1934. This withdrawal order was never revoked and finally by the act of July 24, 1956, the undisposed-of surplus lands were restored to tribal ownership. In the period between December 29, 1916, and September 19, 1934, undoubtedly some of the surplus lands were entered and patented to stock-raising homesteaders, with the minerals being reserved in the United States. Such a reservation would operate to leave the mineral rights in a status quo, or in other words, the mineral rights remained a part of the surplus lands of the reservation. While title to the mineral rights was reserved in the United States, the title was in the nature of a trust title for the benefit of the Indians, the same as was true of all the undisposed-of surplus lands. It was so held in the Solicitors' opinion of May 24, 1949 (M-35049) which provided in part as follows: pro *** it may be noted that section 6 of the act of March 22, 1906, vided that the proceeds of the disposal of such lands should be deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the Colville Indians and should be expended for their benefit under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, and that section 9 of the 1906 act expressly provided that the United States should act as trustee for the Indians in the disposal of their lands. The surplus lands of the Colville Indian Reservation, therefore, are Indian trust lands, and, in a strict sense, they are not public lands of the United States (Ash Sheep Company v. United States, 252 U. S. 159). Since the mineral rights were not conveyed with the patents issued to the stockraising homesteaders such mineral rights retained their status as surplus lands held by the United States in trust for the Indians and those mineral rights which were not claimed by mining claimants under the general mining laws in the period between December 29, 1916, and September 19, 1934, were restored to tribal ownership by the act of July 24, 1956, the same as any other undisposed-of surplus lands. As to the administration of such restored mineral rights it is our opinion that the jurisdiction is in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, not the Bureau of Land Management. It should be noted, however, that valid unpatented mining claims might have been located on the patented homestead lands during the period that they were open to mineral entry. Such unpatented mining claims might be in existence today and in our opinion primary administrative jurisdiction as to such claims is in the Bureau of Land Management, inasmuch as they were located under the general mining |