“_Land._ Approximately 5,000 Papago Indians are living, as they have lived since they were first known to history, on the public domain in Pima and Pinal Counties. They are an industrious and self-supporting people and maintain the habits of life that have been theirs for many generations. They know no other home than the desert and are able to sustain life under conditions which would be difficult, if not impossible, for white people. These Indians on the public domain are more or less nomadic, moving from two to four times each year from their farms in the valleys to the ranges on the foothills. They are scattered in some fifty or sixty small villages over a vast tract of desert and mountain country. On their farms, which they break out of the desert wherever water can be obtained, they raise two crops a year, in summer raising beans, peas, squashes, melons and corn, and in winter wheat and a little barley. Each family or village owns some cattle, horses and mules. Their tribal customs are good and the habits of family life, while exceedingly primitive, are excellent. The Franciscan Fathers have for some time maintained missions and a few schools among these nomadic Papagoes and the Presbyterian Board of Missions has also several chapels and schools in the chief villages. “These Papagoes on the public domain have no title whatsoever to the lands where they have made their homes from time immemorial The desert nature of their country is such that thus far they have had little contact with white settlers. The time is, however, fast approaching when the better parts of the land which they occupy will be desired by white settlers or prospectors. A railroad project, the Tucson-Ajo Railroad, has already put a survey through the Santa Rosa Valley for the purpose of transporting the output of the Ajo Mines in Southern Arizona to market and opening the country to settlement. If this project is completed it will mean the coming of Whites into this territory and inevitably imperil the continued occupation by the Indians of the irrigable lands. In order to preserve the rights of these people it is our judgment that a number of Executive Order Reservations drawn upon lines to be recommended by the Department of the Interior should at once be made. The reservations should contain the lands adjacent to the villages which are needed for farming and grazing purposes and sufficient sources of water supply for irrigation, stock and domestic use. The village sites and the water sources should be held in common. The allotments heretofore made to Indians upon the public domain should then be cancelled where actual residence has not been established. Any delay will greatly imperil the character and prospects of these self-sustaining Indians, who have never had any trouble with white men, and who deserve the sympathy and protection of the Government.