Dawes Act of 1887

In dealing with Native Americans in the 1870s and onward, many took an assimilationist stance. With the abundance of land in the western half of the United States, the federal government decided to allot Native Americans individual land grants, moving away from their previous policy of tribal reservations.

The Dawes Severalty Act was passed by Congress in 1887. It gave 160 acres to the head of an Indian family, 80 acres for other single adults, and 40 acres for children. This land was held "in trust for the sole use and benefit of the Indian to whom such allotment shall have been made" in order to discourage speculators. Provided that the Indians assimilated to this farming life, they would earn citizenship. However, of the 47 million acres of land granted by this act, much of it was unsuitable and infertile, with the better land sold to white settlers. The idea of giving Native Americans a very American job of farming and ridding them of their tribal ways did not come into fruition because of the sub-par land and tools the Native Americans were given. A foreign practice to them, farming did not assimilate the Native Americans as some idealists had hoped it would.

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 499. Print.

An Act to Provide for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty to Indians on the Various Reservations (General Allotment Act or Dawes Act), Statutes at Large 24, 388-91, NADP Document A1887.

"The Dawes Act (1887)." New Perspectives on THE WEST. PBS, 2001. Web. 26 Nov 2010. <http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/dawes.htm>.

Web. 26 Nov 2010. <http://www.historicaltrauma.com/indianland.jpg>.