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Title 25 — IndiansRelease 119-73not60

§343 Correction of Errors in Allotments and Patents

Title 25 › Chapter 9— ALLOTMENT OF INDIAN LANDS › § 343

Last updated Apr 5, 2026|Official source

Summary

The Secretary of the Interior can fix errors when the same land was wrongly given twice or when a patent has the wrong land description. While the United States still holds the land in trust and a conditional patent exists, the Secretary may correct the records and cancel a mistaken patent. If the original patent can’t be found, cancellation counts if it’s recorded in the Bureau of Land Management. Lands from such cancellations may be opened for settlement after 60 days. Except for these corrections or when the allottee or heirs give up a conditional patent to take another allotment, conditional patents cannot be canceled without Congress’s approval.

Full Legal Text

Title 25, §343

Indians — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

In all cases where it shall appear that a double allotment of land has been wrongfully or erroneously made by the Secretary of the Interior to any Indian by an assumed name or otherwise, or where a mistake has been made in the description of the land inserted in any patent, said Secretary is authorized and directed, during the time that the United States may hold the title to the land in trust for any such Indian, and for which a conditional patent may have been issued, to rectify and correct such mistakes and cancel any patent which may have been thus erroneously and wrongfully issued whenever in his opinion the same ought to be canceled for error in the issue thereof, and if possession of the original patent cannot be obtained, such cancellation shall be effective if made upon the records of the Bureau of Land Management; and no proclamation shall be necessary to open to settlement the lands to which such an erroneous allotment patent has been canceled, provided such lands would otherwise be subject to entry: And provided, That such lands shall not be open to settlement for sixty days after such cancellation: And further provided, That no conditional patent that has been or that may be executed in favor of any Indian allottee, excepting in cases hereinbefore authorized, and excepting in cases where the conditional patent is relinquished by the patentee or his heirs to take another allotment, shall be subject to cancellation without authority of Congress.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Executive Documents

Transfer of Functions

For

Transfer of Functions

of other officers, employees, and agencies of Department of the Interior, with certain exceptions, to Secretary of the Interior, with power to delegate, see Reorg. Plan No. 3 of 1950, §§ 1, 2, eff. May 24, 1950, 15 F.R. 3174, 64 Stat. 1262, set out in the Appendix to Title 5, Government Organization and Employees. “Bureau of Land Management” substituted in text for “General Land Office” on authority of Reorg. Plan No. 3 of 1946, set out in the Appendix to Title 5.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

25 U.S.C. § 343

Title 25 — Indians

Last Updated

Apr 5, 2026

Release point: 119-73not60