“An instance of the manner in which the Minnesota Indians have been made the instruments or causes for defrauding the Government through Congress, in the interests of attorneys, and these same parties who have been so often suggested, is the Mille Lac Indian case. An appropriation of $40,000 was secured through an act of Congress ostensibly for the relief of the Mille Lac Indians as a payment for certain alleged improvements made by them upon the Mille Lac Reservation. The matter came up this way:
“In 1854 the Mille Lac Band ceded their reservation to the Government. In 1862, when Chief Hole-in-the-Day advised a combination with the Sioux for an uprising against the Government, these Indians refused to participate on account of their ancient enmity with the Sioux. To reward them for their loyalty the President promised them they might still remain on their reservation as long as they did not interfere with the Whites.
GROUP OF THIRTY PERSONS CONSTITUTING LINNEN-MOOREHEAD FORCE WHITE EARTH INVESTIGATION, 1909
“Under the Nelson Act, in the treaty of 1889, they ceded this privilege of occupancy to the Government, but some portions of them refused to remove to White Earth, claiming that they had never really ceded anything to the Government. As an inducement for these parties to leave, Congress was persuaded to appropriate $40,000, or so much thereof as might be necessary for the purpose, to pay these parties for the improvements they had made during their occupancy of the reservation. (32 Stat. L. 268.) Michelet and this same ——[[12]] went over for the Government to investigate and appraise the improvements, and found practically none—nothing but the charred remains of some Indian tipis; but to eat up, that is, to cover the entire $40,000, these charred remains were appraised at the original cost of the tipis, and items were inserted in the list of improvements, such as the profit an Indian would make gathering wild rice for a year, for gathering wild honey for a like period, and other like items. Now, the real disposition of the money seems to have been as follows:
“First, $4,000 was paid to Gus H. Beaulieu for attorney’s fees, $2,500 was paid to D. B. Henderson as attorney’s fees, and $1,500 to D. B. Henderson for expenses. Four chiefs received $1,000 each. About $17,000 was then prorated among the Indians; $10,020 then remained in the hands of Gus H. Beaulieu.
“It then became necessary for the Mille Lac Indians to employ another set of attorneys to sue Beaulieu for the $10,020. After considerable expensive litigation, Beaulieu deposited $5,600 to the credit of the Mille Lac Band in the Merchants National Bank of St. Cloud, Minn., and paid $1,000 to the Indians’ attorneys.
“The traders in the vicinity of the Mille Lac Reservation then commenced suit for the money so deposited, claiming that the individual members of the band owed them money for goods. Again a compromise was effected with the result that a portion of the $5,600 was turned over to Agent Michelet for distribution. There is now about $208 waiting for the claimants.
“We think this is indicative of the way in which Congress has contributed innocently from the public funds to the support and enrichment of a few persons of little or no merit, by a species of pretense of recompensing the Indians who, in the end, have slight participation in the generous provisions so by Congress made.”