What Was The Dawes Act Of 1887

Congress passed the Dawes Allotment Act in 1887, its purpose was to teach the Natives the farming methods and the American values of individualism as well as private property rather than collectively owned land in order to assimilate the Natives. This act is seen as the most assimilative and ruined tribal functions culturally and economically with the entire allotment process (O’Brien 77). The act divided reservation lands amongst individual people and families in order for them to farm and raise livestock. Each head of a household would obtain about 160 acres and individuals who were over the age of eighteen would get 80 acres, while all others would receive 40 acres of land, but any surplus land would go to settlers.

For this essay, the question under investigation is: “To what extent did the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 impact Native American Tribes and their culture?” The number of tribes impacted by this act is too vast for us to investigate them all, so the focus of this research question will be on the Five Civilized Tribes to make the subject less broad. Lifestyles of the Native Americans in the Five Civilized Tribes before and after the Dawes Act will be investigated to get a better understanding of the life and cultural changes these people endured. The impacts include the splitting up of land and the redistribution of the land to individual tribe members, and the introduction of "white culture," such as farming, to the Native Americans.

The depth of hostility felt by many white Americans toward the Indians was very aggressive in my opinion. I personally do not understand why they were so cruel to the Native Americans when the Indians were there first. I understand the concept that they needed to have sustainability and needs, but I think the white Americans did it the wrong way. Next, I think the main goal of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 was to compromise and share the land equally with the Indians.

The Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 authorized individual allotment of reservation lands to to be tribal citizens and granted citizenship to the allotte upon the termination of the trust status of the land. This created a checkerboard map where Native Americans were mixed with whites. Hence the word, "checkerboard" effect. The Act affected Natives by taking away millions of acres of their land. Furthermore, this Act is the reason why many Native land is separated into nations.

The Dawes act of 1887 was a law that allowed distribution of Indian reservation land between tribesmen with the task of making whiteman’s image as responsible farmers. It was presented to congress several times by Sen. Henry L. Dawes from Massachusetts. On February 7, 1887 it was finally enacted under terms that the president presented. It was determined the recipients that were suitable were issued grants. The 160 acres of land was issued to head of households.

Many Americans were influenced by the Homestead Act which gave them 160 Acres of land as long as they maintained the land for 5 years. Eventually, the Native Americans no longer had somewhere to go. They decided to sign a treaty with the Americans which granted them a small reservation in which no American would cross and a promise that supplies would be sent. However, the supplies never came and Americans continued to cross into the reservation. The Native Americans wanted to fight back but they were powerless against the American’s

The constrained digestion of Native Americans was in this manner defended as being better for the Indians themselves. Numerous Native Americans, be that as it may, declined to acknowledge what the administration was giving them. They would not surrender their otherworldly convictions. They declined to figure out how to ranch, and they wanted to end up "socialized." To most individuals from white society, Native Americans were viewed as primitive, because the the fact that they didn 't meet society 's qualities and standards.

1. How did Dawes Act effected the Native Americans? Dawes Act is the 1887 General Allotment Act. This act was to force the American Indians, who lived in communal way of life, to live Europeans style of individualism. It provided 160 acres of land for each family head and 80 acres to single persons over the age of eighteen (Reyhner and Eder,2006, p.81).

Would you remove an abundance of Indians from their homes for money? That is what the Indian Removal Act did. Hundreds of Native Americans were taken from their homes. Andrew Jackson and John Ross had a debate on if they should get rid of the Indian Removal Act or if they should keep it. The Indian Removal Act was a step in the right direction.

More indians tribes were destroyed during war with the whites, and since the Native Americans did not have as much technology, food, and medicine as the whites, they lost a lot of warriors. Many Native Americans would leave their tribes in search for food only to be confronted and ambushed by white soldiers. Some Native Americans chose to surrender rather than to be moved to a different location. After the Indian and American War, the General Allotment Act was passed, also known as The Dawes Act of 1887. The Dawes Act granted Native Americans land allotments.

The U.S used American exceptionalism to justify Native American removal by trying to trick Natives into believing they can be “helpful” to each other and by using power that they knew the natives didn’t have. In source C it states, “listened to our professions of friendship; we called him brother, and he believed us.” This shows the trickery used by Americans towards the Natives, causing them to be forced out of land. Similarly it states, “He thought the U.S government would trick, bribe, and bully Indian tribes as it carried out the law. The trickery, He feared, would lure Indians into selling their lands.

The Native American reservations were viewed as corrupt and unsanitary. Congress devised a solution to both the “Indian problem” and settlers' continued desire for land through the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. The Dawes Act, which fit into the government ulterior goal of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream society, divided existing reservations into individual allotments of 40 to 160 acres of land. Native American male heads of household were assigned these allotments in trust. If they farmed their land successfully, they would gain complete ownership and U.S. citizenship after 25 years.

It was designed to encourage the breakup of the tribes and promote the assimilation of Indians into American society. It would be the major Indian policy until the 1930s. Dawes’ goal was to create independent farmers out of Indians give them land and the tools for citizenship. The act, though well intentioned, before the passing of the act Native Americans owned about 138 million acres. By 1900, however, the amount of land had dropped to 78 million acres (Bickford-Duane, 2015).

The Allotment Act The Dawes Act and its supporters sang a very similar tune to southerners who justified slavery as their patriarchal and christian duty. The Dawes Act allowed the President of the United States to survey the reservations Indians lived on and allot its land to heads of households, single persons over eighteen, and to orphans. This meant that the President went into reservations and redistributed the land, upsetting the system Native Americans had previously. Slave owners of the Antebellum South believed that the Black men and women needed to be enslaved, for they could not function without a patriarchal master. Westerners too saw the Native Americans as inferior, and felt that they had to help the tribal people be free of

Throughout the 19th century Native Americans were treated far less than respectful by the United States’ government. This was the time when the United States wanted to expand and grow rapidly as a land, and to achieve this goal, the Native Americans were “pushed” westward. It was a memorable and tricky time in the Natives’ history, and the US government made many treatments with the Native Americans, making big changes on the Indian nation. Native Americans wanted to live peacefully with the white men, but the result of treatments and agreements was not quite peaceful. This precedent of mistreatment of minorities began with Andrew Jackson’s indian removal policies to the tribes of Oklahoma (specifically the Cherokee indians) in 1829 because of the lack of respect given to the indians during the removal laws.