When an Indian appeared with more than one trust patent he was usually told that one of these would be purchased or mortgaged and the others would be held for him and he could sign papers for all of them. Many of the buyers were accustomed to say to the Indian, “You have no safe in your cabin, and if these papers burn up you would lose your land. You had better let me keep them in my safe.” Then the Indian signed and parted with the papers and we can imagine the result.
Allotments acquired by inheritance are called by the Indians “dead allotments.” Such estates must be probated. In other communities the fee is anywhere from a few dollars to fifteen dollars or more, but in Detroit, Mahnomen, Ogema and Wauban, the usual charge varied from $50 to as high as $150, according to the credulity of the victim—and there were other charges. When the Indians reported to us that they had signed over “dead allotments” to be probated, we frequently discovered that it was not clear in the Indian’s mind how so much money was necessary in order to settle these estates, but having surrendered the trust patent, he was without anything to show for his inheritance. Frequently little or nothing accrued to the Indian after the benevolent attorney or banker had been paid for his efforts in directing the Indian’s footsteps along the broad highway of civilization.
Instances are not wanting where deceased Indians were actually resurrected long enough to dispose of land which they had neglected to convey during life, and affidavits are not lacking which recite that so-and-so was an adult mixed-blood and competent to handle his affairs. I have in mind one case of a boy resting in his grave at Pine Point. Certain individuals made affidavit that this boy was alive, and was of age, and thereby they secured control of his valuable pine allotment.
The affidavits bristled with forgery and perjury.
Men employed in the livery stables of Detroit and elsewhere told me that as soon as the lands were allotted all the available teams and drivers were engaged by the buyers, and that night and day for many months these men scoured the reservation and pursued the Indian men, women and children until they had secured the best farms and timber tracts available. There is one man in particular whose history is interesting. He walked into Detroit a tramp ten years ago and began washing dishes in a hotel. Just how he got his start is under dispute, one man claiming that a stranded theatrical company left several trunks of gaudy paraphernalia in Detroit, which this man traded to some drunken Indians for a tract of land. Whether this is true or not, he was successful in Indian land speculation, and at present he is now a leading citizens of the region. Some of the Indians call him, “the white wolf, with the gold teeth.”