QUAPAW MINING ROYALTIES

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Mining at Quapaw (19383.128.9, Frederick S. Barde Collection, OHS).
were trying to steer the interior secretary to approve leases with large
profits for the tribe.
The Interior Department allowed the Quapaws to receive only a
small percentage of mining profits, thus Quapaw hope for advantageous
leases was often not fulfilled. From 1906 to 1920, non-Quapaw mining
companies pulled ore valued at $19,503,459 from Quapaw lands and
gave the Quapaws a royalty of just $1,307,627 at a rate of 6.7 percent.
From 1921 to 1929, non-Quapaw mining companies mined $92,147,072
of ore on Quapaw land and gave the Quapaws a royalty of $8,784,424,
for a rate of 9.5 percent. One-quarter of the ore produced in the tri-
state district since 1891 came from Quapaw lands." All royalties after
1921 were nearly 10 percent. Before 1921 there was a sliding scale,
from roughly 7.5 percent to 15 percent, which was based on market
prices for ore.12 In 1928 the federal district court in Tulsa decided that
Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall had made fair contracts involving
ten Quapaws who saw $30 million in ore removed from their land by
the Eagle-Picher Lead Company and its sublessees.13 The Department

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