The Curtis Act of 1898 was an amendment to the United States

Dawes Act The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887) regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States. Named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, it authorized the Pre ...

; it resulted in the break-up of tribal governments and communal lands in

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...

(now Oklahoma) of the

Five Civilized Tribes The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by European Americans in the colonial and early federal period in the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek ...

: the

Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are ...

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classified as ...

Muscogee The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsCherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

, and

Seminole The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, an ...

. These tribes had been previously exempt from the 1887 General Allotment Act (

) because of the terms of their treaties. In total, the tribes immediately lost control of about 90 million acres of their communal lands; they lost more in subsequent years. The act also transferred the authority to determine members of tribes to the

Dawes Commission The United States, American Dawes Commission, named for its first chairman Henry L. Dawes, was authorized under a rider to an Indian Office appropriation bill, March 3, 1893. Its purpose was to convince the Five Civilized Tribes to agree to cede tr ...

as part of the registration of members. Thus, individuals could be enrolled as members without tribal consent.Tatro, M. Kaye. ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. "Curtis Act

By effectively abolishing the remainder of tribal courts, tribal governments, and tribal land claims in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma, the act enabled Oklahoma to be admitted as a state, which followed in 1907.

History

Officially titled the "Act for the Protection of the People of Indian Territory", the Act is named for former Vice President

Charles Curtis Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was an American attorney and Republican politician from Kansas who served as the 31st vice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 under Herbert Hoover. He had served as the Sena ...

, Republican congressman from Kansas and its author. He was of mixed Native American and European descent: on his mother's side Kansa, Osage, Potawatomi, and French; and on his father's side three ethnic lines of British Isles ancestry. Curtis was raised in part on the Kaw Reservation of his maternal grandparents, but also lived with his paternal grandparents and attended Topeka High School. He read law, became an attorney, and later was elected to the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

and Senate. He served as Vice-President under Herbert Hoover. In the usual fashion, by the time the bill HR 8581 had gone through five revisions in committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, there was little left of Curtis' original draft. In his hand-written autobiography, Curtis noted having been unhappy with the final version of the Curtis Act. He believed that the Five Civilized Tribes needed to make changes. He thought that the way ahead for Native Americans was through education and use of both their and the majority cultures, but he also had hoped to give more support to Native American transitions.

Major provisions

Abolition of tribal governments

The Curtis Act called for the abolition of tribal governments on March 6, 1906.Wilson, Linda D. ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. "Statehood Movement." Retrieved May 6, 201

In 1924, it declared all Indians to be citizens of the United States. Adams, David Wallace. ''Education for Extinction : American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928'' Lawrence, Kan: University Press of Kansas, 1995. Due to the nature of the lands in Indian Territory and dry climate, the 160-acre allotments were often too small to permit profitable farming, and many Indian families had to give up and lost their lands in future years.

Land allotments modification

The Act incorporated the basic points regarding land allotments and termination of tribal governments that had earlier appeared in the

Atoka Agreement The Atoka Agreement is a document signed by representatives of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian Nations and members of the United States Dawes Commission on April 23, 1897, at Atoka, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). It provided for the allotment ...

between the

and

Chickasaw Nation The Chickasaw Nation (Chickasaw language, Chickasaw: Chikashsha I̠yaakni) is a federally recognized tribes, federally recognized Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe, with its headquarters located in Ada, Oklahoma in th ...

s. The Atoka Agreement had been rejected by a popular vote of the Chickasaw, but accepted by the Choctaw. The Curtis Act required that the Atoka Agreement be resubmitted to a vote of both nations. The agreement was approved in a joint election on August 24, 1898. "The Curtis Act of 1898". ''Time''.
Accessed December 4, 2016.

Registration of tribal members

The Curtis Act also scrapped the registration of tribal members that had been conducted under the

and ordered that new enrollments. This Act extended all provisions of the Dawes Act to the lands of the

. In the end, the large parts declared by the government to be "surplus" to their needs were made available for sale, including to non-Natives. An estimated 90 million acres of land formerly reserved for Native Americans were removed from their control." America 1900: The General Allotment Act."
''The American Experience,'' National Public Radio.

Incorporation of towns

The Curtis Act also authorized the incorporation of towns in Indian Territory. This meant that towns had a legal basis for being laid out, surveyed and plotted. Any individual could obtain title to the lot in

fee simple In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" is real property held without limit of time (i.e., perm ...

. The title owner of a lot had the legal right to sell or mortgage the property. An incorporated town or city had the right to self-regulation and levy taxes, allowing them to establish public services. By 1900, the largest towns in Indian Territory had incorporated. These included: Ardmore, with 1,500 residents; Muskogee 4,200; McAlester 3,500; Wagoner 2,300; Tulsa 1,300; and Eufaula 800.''Muskogee Phoenix''. "Curtis Act brought changes to towns in Indian Territory." October 27, 2007. Retrieved May 5, 201
"Curtis Act brought changes to towns in Indian Territory"
''Muskogee Phoenix''

Provision for vote by residents

The Act also provided that residents could vote for city officials. As the area was still a US Territory, residents could not vote for candidates for national office. Since Territorial government officials were appointed by the President of the United States, the question of voting for these officials was moot. After Oklahoma was admitted as a state in 1907, residents could vote for both state and national officials.

References

External links

Curtis Act Information & Video
Chickasaw.TV
Charles Curtis; Native-American Indian Vice-President; a biography

''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''
Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory

"Dawes Act"
Our Documents.gov website
"The Curtis Act of 1898". ''Time''.
Accessed December 4, 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Curtis Act Of 1898 United States federal Native American legislation Cherokee Nation (1794–1907) 1898 in American law Pre-statehood history of Oklahoma Aboriginal title in the United States 1898 in Oklahoma Territory 1898 in Indian Territory