brendan please
your point about the illegal cuban commie druglords is well made & well taken
but
>
>>From what I understand, when the railroads were built west in the 1800s, the
>govt granted the lands for so many miles either side of the tracks to the
>railroad companies to sell. To ensure that they weren't giving away massive
>mineral rights (ie gold etc), they only granted every alternate sqaure mile.
the railroad checkerboard grants included rights to any coal & iron found
on these lands but expressly not the precious mineral rights
& provisions for restitution were even made in case of forfeiture by gold
strike
as
http://www.ns.net/~keithw/clearcut.htm for example explains
& as
http://www.landgrant.org/forfeiture.html explains
the prevailing checkerboard pattern was the result of a political compromise
having nothing whatever to do with mineral rights or indians
so you do appear to have jumped over your own checkers here
>I believe the same principle was used on indian reservations: it hleps
>ensure anything valuable under the soil is split 50/50, so neither side can
>demand a redrawing of the boundary at a later stage if something is
>discovered, claiming the other side knew about it all along and just hushed
>it up.
indeed i have just satisfied myself at least that very very few indian
reservations received any checkerboard lands of this sort
& when they did so it was only for 12 miles of width out of the railroads
120 miles of width
& they only got the even numbered sections that were left over many years
after the railroads had already gotten the odd numbered sections
l871 last railroad checkerboard grants
1875 first indian checkerboard reservations
thus these were not really reservations but residues
not allocations but matters of default
there never were any sides considered
certainly never any 50 50 split between railroaders & indians
nor between indians & anybody
m
>But it does make for a great divide and rule: "yes, we will give you x acres
>of land. But as every alternate mile will be ours, we can easily control
>you, as to get to our miles, we have to cros yours, so we can keep and eye
>on you and check for communists/drugs/illegal Cuban immigrants."
>B
>
>
>
>>From: peter.smaardijk@...
>>Reply-To: BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com
>>To: BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com
>>Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Re: final indian checkerboard & cross counts
>>Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 21:20:47 -0000
>>
>>I've been following this quest for a while now, and not knowing a lot
>>about Indian reservations and regulations concerning these, I am
>>getting a bit curious about the principles you Americans (or should I
>>say Yanks - just not to mean native Americans) apply when defining
>>boundaries. Is it just a case of "there is a certain area of land,
>>and we get half, and you get half as well, and we don't want to split
>>up the area arbitrarily in a way that one people get the best half,
>>and the other people the less than best half, so we do it the
>>chequered way", or is there another principle applied here? Just
>>enlighten me, an ignorant inhabitant of the so-called "Old
>>Continent", of your unitedstatish ways.
>>
>>Peter S.
>>
>>--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., michael donner <m@d...> wrote:
>> > after further experimentation & checking against state topo index
>>maps
>> > & also against individual topo quads
>> > i can report that the zoomable indian reservation map
>> > representing some great fun & timely reinforcement from arif
>> > <http://www.gdsc.bia.gov/districts> http://www.gdsc.bia.gov/districts
>> > may leave a bit to be desired in some respects
>> > & may even raise more questions than it answers
>> > but
>> > it does appear to be the best available map & plaything in this
>>whole field
>> > & it has proved to be entirely credible in some cases at least
>> > so i couldnt help but proceed to complete a first estimated indian
>>cross census
>> > despite my several misgivings about it
>> > & am just reduced to hoping that all the data are in fact correct
>> >
>> >
>> > the turning point in my experience of this site came when i was
>>pleasantly
>> > surprised to find it indicating an indian cross right here in
>>connecticut
>> > which i do very much want to believe is the truth
>> > despite the fact that the public land system grid
>> > which was the proximate cause of just about all the crosses
>> > was never used in connecticut
>> > & even tho this cross like many of the others is unsubstantiated
>>by topo
>> > evidence
>> > & moreover forces me to swallow so much else along with it
>> >
>> >
>> > before proceeding with the boundary cross census report tho
>> > it may be important to note that the staggering numbers i have
>>racked up
>> > here are not so much the result of the checkerboard or sectional
>> > alternation that is so plain to see at agua caliente & torres
>>martinez
>> > & which got me into this ridiculous business in the first place
>> > as they are the result of the much more widespread sort of random
>> > scattershot property ownership
>> > which however is curiously also called checkerboard
>> >
>> > while crosses were found to be rampant in the many scattershot areas
>> > precious little new evidence of true checkerboard patterning was
>>found anywhere
>> >
>> > in fact the only new such finds of any consequence
>> > are the arizona portion of the tristate mojave reservation
>> > & part of the laguna reservation in new mexico
>> >
>> > some navajo areas also seem almost to break into pure checkerboard
>>at times
>> > but they are nowhere very coherent or convincing
>> > so i have not counted them in this bunch
>> >
>> >
>> > all of which brings the updated cross counts of the true
>>checkerboard
>> > tribes to the following very probably final results
>> > agua caliente 57
>> > torres martinez 43
>> > laguna 40
>> > mojave 33
>> > hualapai 13
>> > morongo 12
>> > plus some minor cases involving a few dozen crosses in all at most
>> >
>> >
>> > several tribes have more crosses but none are so distinctly
>>checkered as these
>> >
>> >
>> > the single peneclave with the greatest known number of crosses
>> > 8 in all
>> > occurs at agua caliente
>> >
>> >
>> > another highlight
>> > many of the more complex boundaries cant even be drawn in a single
>> > continuous line
>> > a fact which presents the philosophical question of exactly what
>>they are
>> > if they are not lines
>> >
>> > presumably some fundamentally different kind of continuums
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > & finally the piece of resistance
>> > the staggering indian cross totals
>> > of all types
>> > by state
>> > az 47
>> > ca 125
>> > co 1
>> > ct 1
>> > mi 5
>> > mn 57
>> > ms 11
>> > mt 73
>> > nv 25
>> > nm 280 approx
>> > nd 20
>> > or 24
>> > sd 160 approx
>> > ut 8
>> > wa 8
>> > wi 34
>> > total 880 approx
>> >
>> >
>> > the only remaining question is how to evaluate these in relation to
>>the
>> > bicountry crosses & the bicounty cross & the bimeridian cross
>>previously
>> > found
>> >
>> > m
>>
>
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