The Indian Dispossessed
mainly wealthy farmers and country bankers from Iowa and adjacent States, augmented by a considerable force of chronic speculators from everywhere. Not in a dozen years had so much land been sold as in the two years of this speculative boom. It was a natural reaction from the long period of land depression which followed the disastrous western mortgage business of the eighties, and as a net result of the general shaking-up, South Dakota found herself in 1903 with normal, steady land values averaging throughout the State somewhat more than double those which prevailed prior to the welcome raid of the speculator.
This kaleidoscopic change in the land situation served to intensify, as may be imagined, the sincere sorrow of the South Dakota delegation in Congress over the loss of a good bargain with the Indians. But it is in the philosophy of the professional land-grabber that "while there's an Indian there's hope"; pressure was again brought to bear upon the Department of the Interior, and in the summer of 1903 Inspector McLaughlin was again on the Rosebud reservation, endeavoring to obtain a renewal of the old agreement, modified, however, in one important particular, so as to avoid the necessity of asking Congress for any considerable appropriation. Instead of the Government buying the entire tract outright at two dollars and a half per acre, as previously proposed, the Indians were asked
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