The Dawes Act

Key Highlights

  • The Reservation policies and the Dawes Act were intended to remove Native Indians from their lands to allow for white settlers occupation.
  • Franklin Roosevelt administration, through the Indian Reorganization Act, ended the allotment policy

The Indian Problem

In the late 1840s, the swelling US population on the eastern side of the Indian Territories resulted in numerous conflicts between the Natives and the white settlers. William Medill proposed the creation of reservations set aside exclusively for the Natives, similar to the style in the Native settlement areas in which the Natives would be contained. Congress approved the Indian Appropriations Act in 1851 that created the first reservations in Oklahoma Territory.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Natives put up a robust resistance to the reservation policies called the Indian Wars until they finally negotiated treaties and their settlement in reservation areas.

At first, the Reservation systems allowed each tribe to exercise sovereignty over their land for the protection of their territories and were allowed a limited degree of self-governance. The Senate only intervened in the treaty formulation process during which they ratified treaties entered into by the Natives and the federal government.

However, through a succession of court decisions and Senate actions, in the 1880s Natives were forced to renounce their tribal governments, laws and traditions as these were regarded as an uncivilised lifestyle for the white settlers.

On February 8 1887, President Grover Cleveland assented to the Dawes Allotment Act.

The Dawes Act of 1887

The Dawes Act, also called the General Allotment Act, authorised the President of the United States to survey tribal land belonging to the Native Americans and divide and allot smaller portions of it to individuals. Those who accepted the allocations and lived distinctly from the tribes were granted US citizenship.

The Act provided that a head of a family would be allotted 160 acres of land, a single person or orphan over 18, 80 acres and single persons below 18 years of age 40 acres. The US governments would hold in trust the allotments for 25 years. Eligible Native Americans had four years to voluntarily identify land, after which the Secretary of Interior would forcefully allot land.

The Act provided that persons agreeing to the allotment terms were subject to state and federal laws. However, the Act did not apply to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Miami, and Peoria in Indian Territory nor the Osage, Sac, and Fox in the Oklahoma Territory nor reservations occupied by Seneca Nation of New York, the territory in the State of Nebraska adjacent to the Sioux Nation. Later, the law applied to the Wea, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankeshaw, and Western Miami tribes by an Act of 1889.

The Act was named after its creator Senator Henry Laurens Dawes of Massachusetts to abolish tribal and communal land ownership among the Natives.  The objective was to free up more land for white settlers and further encourage the assimilation of Native Indians into general white American society and lift them out of poverty. “Excess” territory after the allotment was to be sold to the white settlers. Individual ownership and subsistence farming were, according to the Euro-American model, progressive and favourable as opposed to the communal land ownership and governance systems of the Natives.

This Act was amended in 1891  and became the Curtis Act and in 1908 the Burke Act.

Dawes Act 1891 Amendments

This amendment provided for a pro-rata distribution in instances where the reservation was not large enough to allow for individual allotments of land according to the sizes provided in the parent Act. It provided for a double allocation of land where the land was suitable for grazing only and also established a criterion for inheritance.

The Curtis Act

The Curtis Act (1898) was an amendment to the Dawes Act to provide its application to the Five Civilized Tribes. The Native tribes, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, were considered to be civilised because of their elaborate ruling systems.  The Dawes Commission, under the Indian appropriation bill in 1893, was initiated to convince the Five Civilized Tribes to agree to the allotment terms. The commission registered the tribes and the members of the tribes in the Dawes Rolls.

The Burke Act

The amendment touched on the sections of the Dawes Act concerning citizenship and mechanisms for issuing allotments. Citizenship was acquired unconditionally upon acceptance of allotted land and the Secretary of Interior could force Natives to accept title to allotted land. Further, the allotted land was de-classified as held under trust by the government and could be taxed.

Impact

The law and amendments required the dissolution of tribal governments including courts, allotment of communal land to individuals registered as belonging to the tribe and sale of surplus land to white settlers. Over 90 million acres of land was sold to non-Natives. Criminals and speculators took advantage of the Natives unfamiliarity of state and federal land ownership laws.

Natives were given land too small for profitable farming and there was a significant breakdown of tribal social structures and erosion of heritage. The Franklin Roosevelt administration, through the Indian Reorganization Act, ended the allotment policy and introduced the “New Deal” renewing the Native rights to communal ownership and self-government.