their number shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.

Lauds, how to be allotted hereafter.

What tim

ber may sold.

Sales of

be

timber on

ted land

void.

CHAP. 175.

AN ACT to prevent the destruction of timber on the lands of the Tuscarora Indians, and to regulate the highway labor among said Indians.

PASSED April 7, 1854; three-fifths being present. The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

$1. No lands belonging to the Tuscarora nation of Indians, in the county of Niagara, not already cultivated and improved, shall hereafter be appropriated by any Indian to his own use without the consent of the chiefs or head men of said nation, in council; whose duty, however, it shall be, on application, to allot and set apart for any Indian or Indian family, not possessing land, so much wild land as the chiefs shall deem reasonable and equitable.

S 2. Any Indian residing on said lands, having land allotted to him by the chiefs or entered as herein provided, may, with the consent of the chiefs, sell for his own use and benefit any timber or trees on that portion of such lands which he shall actually and in good faith clear for the purpose of cultivation.

$ 3. No timber being on any part of said lands, no trees uncultiva growing thereon nor any manufacture thereof shall be sold or disposed of by any individual Indian or Indians, except as hereinafter provided, and every such sale or disposition shall be absolutely void; and any sale or disposition of such timber or trees, being or growing upon any wild land belonging to said Indians, made by the chiefs in council, shali be for the benefit of the nation, and be paid to said chief or such chief as the council may appoint as their treasurer, and the said chiefs shall be authorized to prosecute for the same, and for the price of any timber or trees unlawfully sold, in the name of the nation, and to recover the amount thereof from any person who shall have received the same.

Actions for timber, how brought.

Allotments

to enter

$ 4. The proper action in the name of the said nation may be prosecuted and maintained by the chiefs for any timber or trees, or the manufacture thereof, sold, taken or carried from the lands of the said nation in any other case than is herein provided and allowed, and shall recover in said action double the value of the timber, trees or article manufactured from them, so sold, taken or carried from said lands.

S5. The chiefs of said nation, in council, may from time to ed in book time appoint a clerk, who in a book kept for that purpose shall from time to time enter all allotments of lands set apart for any Indian or Indian family, and of the part and portion

thereof from which said Indian or Indian family may sell for his own use any timber and trees, and the part he may be permitted to clear for the purpose of cultivation, and in which all consents for the selling of timber shall be entered.

CH. XXVI.

cutting tim

deemed

$6. Any Indian who shall cut or destroy any timber or Indians trees standing or growing on any timbered lands of the said ber to be nation, not set apart for the purposes of cultivation by the trespassers. chiefs in council, or without the consent of the chief, shall be deemed a trespasser and liable to be prosecuted for the same by the chiefs, in the name of the nation, in any court having cognizance of such actions in this state, and in such action may recover twice the value of the timber so cut down and destroyed, and the amount of such recovery shall be collected for the benefit of the said nation; and, in such action, judgment may be rendered on such recovery, and executions issued, in the same manner as against citizens of the state of New York.

ment for

timber.

$ 7. Any Indian who shall wilfully cut down or destroy Punish any timber or trees standing and growing on the reserved destroying timber lauds of the said Indians, except in the manner herein provided, shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanor and liable to a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars in addition to three times the value of the timber cut down or destroyed, or by imprisonment in the county jail of the county of Niagara for a term not exceeding sixty days, or by such fine or imprison

ment.

labor.

$ 8. The said chiefs in council may, at any time before the Highway first day of July, in each year, appropriate such amount of highway labor upon each and every male Indian, over the age of twenty-one years, as they shall deem just and reasonable, not exceeding fifteen days upon any one individual in any year; the number of days' work, and the name of the individual assessed, shall be entered upon a roll to be made and signed by the said chief or the president of the council under their direction; the said chiefs may also designate suitable person or persons under whose directions the said labor shall be applied, and the plan and manner of its application; the person or persons so designated shall give notice to those assessed to perform said labor, and of the time of performance and when to be performed, at least twenty-four hours before the time; and in case any person so assessed, after being so notified, shall neglect or refuse to perform the said labor, he shall forfeit seventy-five cents for each day's labor so assessed, to be recovered by an action in the name of the nation, in which action the said assessment roll shall be conclusive evidence of the regularity of the assessment; and, for the purposes of said action, the said Indians shall be regarded as inhabitants of the town of Lewiston, Niagara county, and the proceedings in said action shall be the same as in actions between citizens of this state; and in case it becomes necessary to serve any paper upon the said nation as a party, it IV. - 51

ᏢᎪᎡᎢ 1.

shall be served by delivering such paper to any two chiefs personally.

Board of education.

Property.

By-laws.

Appropriations.

CHAP. 301.

AN ACT relating to schools on the Tonawanda reser vation.

PASSED April 15, 1854; three-fifths being present.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

$1. The trustees of schools on the Tonawanda reservation in this state, authorized to be elected and appointed by chapter four hundred and forty-four of the Laws of eighteen hundred and fifty-three, and their successors in office, shall constitute a board of education for said tribe of Tonawanda Indians, and are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate by the name and style of "The board of education of Tonawanda," and said board of education, besides the general powers and privileges of a corporation, shall have authority: 1. To take and hold by gift, grant or devise, any real or personal property from said tribe of Tonawanda Indians, or from any one of them, or from any other person, such lands not to exceed one hundred acres, to be used for the purposes of such school as shall be established by said board of education.

2. To make and establish by-laws, rules and regulations for the purpose of the government of the schools under their care, including the departments of literature, agriculture and domestic arts.

3. To appoint of their number a president and secretary. 4. To adjourn from time to time, as they may deem expedient.

5. To receive and apply the moneys appropriated for the support of schools under their care.

$2. The treasurer shall pay, on the warrant of the comptroller, to the order of the state superintendent of public instruction, the sums of money appropriated by chapter four hundred and forty-four of the Session Laws of eighteen hundred and fifty-three to erect school houses and provide for the support of schools for the instruction of Indian children, which sum shall be paid out of the surplus income of the United States deposit fund at such time, within two years after the passage of this act, as the state superintendent of public instruction shall deem proper, and be applied to erect school houses, necessary dwellings, pay rent or teachers' wages, as shall be, in the opinion of said superintendent, necessary to establish and secure the prosperity of such schools; and if said superintendent shall deem it expedient, any part of such sums may be advanced to said board of

education, and applied to any of the purposes specified in this act, under the direction of said superintendent.

CH. XXVL

$3. The said trustees appointed by the state superinten- Bond. dent, before receiving any moneys under this act, shall execute to the people of this state, and deliver to said superintendent, a bond in the penalty of six thousand dollars, with two good and sufficient sureties who shall justify in the said sum of six thousand dollars, and be approved of by said superintendent, conditioned that said trustees so appointed will faithfully discharge their duty as such trustees, and will, at all times when called upon by said superintendent, account for all moneys received by them under the provisions of this

act.

CHAP. 26.

AN ACT to prevent the sale or removal by Indians or other persons, of stone, wood, timber or bark from the Onondaga Indian reservation.

PASSED February 24, 1855.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

Certain con

$1. All contracts which shall hereafter be made by any tracts void. person or persons other than Indian, with any Indian or Indians of the Onondaga nation, or with any Indian of any other nation or tribe residing or living with said Onondaga Indians, without the written consent of the agent of said Indians, for or concerning any stone, or any wood, timber or bark of any kind, growing or being on the lands of said Onondaga nation, or that may have been taken or removed from said lands, shall be absolutely void. And any person or persons receiving, without such written consent, from any such Indian or other person, any such stone, wood, timber or bark of any kind, either on said reservation or that may have been removed therefrom, knowing the same to have been taken or removed from said reservation, shall be liable as trespassers for five times the value of such stone, wood, timber or bark, to be prosecuted for by the agent of said Onondaga Indians, in the name of the people of this state.

prosecute

S2. The agent of the Onondaga nation of Indians, is Agent to hereby authorized to prosecute for all violations of this sta- offenders. tute, in the name of the people of the state of New York, and the moneys arising therefrom, when collected, shall, after deducting his fees, and all reasonable costs and expenses of collection, be paid to the chiefs of the said nation for the benefit of said nation.

PART I.

Title and

name of trustees.

Property.

Trustees.

Real

estate.

CHAP. 233.

AN ACT to incorporate the Thomas Asylum for Orphan and destitute Indian children, on the Cattaraugus reservation, and to provide for its establishment and mainte

nance.

PASSED April 10, 1855; three-fifths being present. The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

$1. For the purpose of establishing and maintaining on the Cattaraugus reservation, an asylum for orphan and destitute Indian children, Eber M. Petit, Chauncey T. Carrier, S. G. Ellis, Elisha Brown, and Asher Wright, white men, and Sylvester Lay, Wallace King, Zechariah L. Jimeson, Lewis Seneca and Joshua Pierce, Indians, and their successors, are hereby constituted a body corporate, by the name of the Thomas Asylum for Orphan and Destitute Indian Children, and shall possess the powers and be subject to the provisions of the third title of the eighteenth chapter and first part of the Revised Statutes, so far as the same are applicable, and have not been repealed; and shall be capable of taking and holding, by gift, grant, or devise, real and personal property, to be applied to the purposes of the corporation, the aunual income of which shall not exceed five thousand dollars.

S2. The persons above named shall be the first trustees of the said corporation, and shall supply any vacancies which may occur in their number by their own appointment. Six of their number shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.

$3. The said trustees may acquire the right to the occupancy and use of land on the Cattaraugus reservation, for the purposes of the corporation, not exceeding fifty acres, either by an act of appropriation by the government of the Seneca nation of Indians, or by lease or purchase from any individual Indian or Indians; but if such land shall at any time cease to be needed for the purposes of said corporation, it shall revert to said government, in case it was received therefrom, on payment of the fair value for such improvements as may have been made thereon; and if it shall have been obtained by purchase from any Indian or Indians, the trustees may sell it, with the improvements thereon, to any Indian or Indians; the proceeds, in either case, to be devoted to the charitable objects of the corporation.

Section 4 temporary.]

$5. The said asylum shall be entitled to share in the appropriations hereafter to be made to the incorporated asylums in the state, and for this purpose shall be deemed an incorporated orphan asylum of this state.