June 1900 - June 6, 1900 (Wednesday)

June 6, 1900 (Wednesday)

• U.S. President William McKinley signed into law the federal charter for the American Red Cross.
• Congress enacted a civil and judicial code for Alaska, setting the capital at Juneau and creating a territorial government
• Congress approved the Agreement with the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache (1892), by which 2,900,000 acres (12,000 km2) of Indian land in Oklahoma had been purchased for a bargain price of 93 cents an acre, despite assertions by the affected tribes (the Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache) that the terms had been misrepresented and the agreement had not legally been ratified as required (under the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867) by 3/4 of the adult males of the tribe. A Kiowa chief named Lone Wolf brought suit in 1901 against the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Indians in the case of Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553 (1/5/1903). On July 4, 1900, President McKinley proclaimed the area open for settlement effective August 6, 1900. Since the mid-20th century, the government has paid tens of millions of dollars in compensation settlements to the three tribes because of their claims of being defrauded in these issues of the treaty and allotments.
• Congress funded the reinterment of 267 Southern soldiers from Northern grounds to a special section of the Arlington National Cemetery.
• Mr. Ryall, the Superintendent of Police in British East Africa (now Kenya), was eaten by a lion after being taken by a railcar, where he was traveling with two other hunters. The lion jumped into the window of a railcar at Kima, where Ryall was sleeping, and dragged him off.