Dawes Act
“Many American Indians preserved their cultures and tribal identities despite government policies promoting assimilation, and they attempted to develop self-sustaining economic practices.” The 1871 Indian Appropriations Act ended recognition of Indian Tribes as sovereign nations and Congress thus stopped negotiating treaties with tribes. It started an era in which the US government would legislate the policies it wanted to implement. The Dawes Act was one such policy.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases where any tribe or band of Indians has been, or shall hereafter be, located upon any reservation created for their use, either by treaty stipulation or by virtue of an act of Congress or executive order setting apart the same for their use, the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, whenever in his opinion any reservation or any part thereof of such Indians is advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes, to cause said reservation, or any part thereof, to be surveyed, or resurveyed if necessary, and to allot the lands in said reservation in severalty to any Indian located thereon in quantities as follows:
To each head of a family, one-quarter of a section; To each single person over eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section; To each orphan child under eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section; and To each other single person under eighteen years now living, or who may be born prior to the date of the order of the President directing an allotment of the lands embraced in any reservation, one-sixteenth of a section…
Dawes Act, 1887.
Question 1
Could the Dawes Act have been passed without the passage of the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act? Explain.
Question 2
Summarize what the Dawes Act did with American Indian Land.
Question 3
How was the Dawes Act part of a larger policy of assimilation?
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