Indian General Allotment Act Of 1887
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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 Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...
, it authorized the President of the United States to subdivide Native American tribal communal landholdings into allotments for Native American heads of families and individuals. This would convert traditional systems of
land tenure In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individual ...
into a government-imposed system of
private property Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...
by forcing Native Americans to "assume a
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
and proprietary relationship with property" that did not previously exist in their cultures. The act allowed tribes the option to sell the lands that remained after allotment to the federal government. Before private property could be dispensed, the government had to determine "which Indians were eligible" for allotments, which propelled an "official search for a federal definition of Indian-ness." Although the act was passed in 1887, the federal government implemented the Dawes Act "on a tribe-by-tribe basis" thereafter. For example, in 1895, Congress passed the Hunter Act, which administered Dawes "among the
Southern Ute The Southern Ute Indian Reservation (Ute dialect: Kapuuta-wa Moghwachi Núuchi-u) is a Native American reservation in southwestern Colorado near the northern New Mexico state line. Its territory consists of land from three counties; in descendin ...
." The nominal purpose of the act was to protect "the property of the natives" as well as to compel " their absorption into the American mainstream." Native peoples who were deemed to be "mixed-blood" were forced to accept U.S. citizenship, while others were "
detribalized Detribalization is the process by which persons who belong to a particular Indigenous ethnic identity or community are detached from that identity or community through the deliberate efforts of colonizers and/or the larger effects of colonialism ...
." Between 1887 and 1934, Native Americans "lost control of about 100 million acres of land" (United States has 1.9 billion acres of land ) or about "two-thirds of the land base they held in 1887" as a result of the act. The loss of land and the break-up of traditional leadership of tribes produced negative cultural and social effects that have since prompted scholars to refer to the act as one of the most destructive U.S. policies for Native Americans in history. 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 ...
" (
Cherokee 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 ...
,
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 ...
,
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 ...
,
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 WoodlandsSeminole 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 ...
) in Indian Territory were initially exempt from the Dawes Act. 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 ...
was established in 1893 as a delegation to register members of tribes for allotment of lands. They came to define tribal belonging in terms of blood-quantum. But, because there was no method of determining precise bloodlines, commission members often assigned "full-blood status" to Native Americans who were perceived as "poorly-assimilated" or "legally incompetent," and "mixed-blood status" to Native Americans who "most resembled whites," regardless of how they identified culturally. The
Curtis Act of 1898 The Curtis Act of 1898 was an amendment to the United States Dawes Act; it resulted in the break-up of tribal governments and communal lands in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory: the Choctaw, Chickasa ...
extended the provisions of the Dawes Act to the "Five Civilized Tribes," required the abolition of their governments and dissolution of tribal courts, allotment of communal lands to individuals registered as tribal members, and sale of lands declared surplus. This law was "an outgrowth of the
land rush of 1889 The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands of former Indian Territory, which had earlier been assigned to the Creek and Seminole peoples. The area that was opened to settlement included all or part of Canad ...
, and completed the extinction of Indian land claims in the territory. This violated the promise of the United States that the
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 ...
would remain Indian land in perpetuity," completed the obliteration of tribal land titles in Indian Territory, and prepared for admission of the territory land to the Union as the state of
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
. The Dawes Act was amended again in 1906 under the
Burke Act The Burke Act (1906), formally known as the General Allotment Act Amendment of 1906 and also called the Forced Fee Patenting Act, amended the Dawes Act of 1887 under which the communal land held by tribes on the Indian reservations was broken up ...
. During the
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, the
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
administration passed the US
Indian Reorganization Act The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of June 18, 1934, or the Wheeler–Howard Act, was U.S. federal legislation that dealt with the status of American Indians in the United States. It was the centerpiece of what has been often called the "Indian ...
(also known as the Wheeler-Howard Law) on June 18, 1934. It prohibited any further land allotment and created a "
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
" for Native Americans, which renewed their rights to reorganize and form self-governments in order to "rebuild an adequate land base."


The "Indian Problem"

During the early 1800s, the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
federal government attempted to address what it referred to as the "Indian Problem." Numerous new European immigrants were settling on the eastern border of the Indian territories, where most of the Native American tribes had been relocated. Conflicts between the groups increased as they competed for resources and operated according to different cultural systems. Many
European Americans European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent E ...
did not believe that members of the two societies could coexist within the same communities. Searching for a quick solution to their problem, Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Medill proposed establishing "colonies" or "reservations" that would be exclusively for the natives, similar to those which some native tribes had created for themselves in the east. It was a form of removal whereby the US government would uproot the natives from current locations to areas in the region beyond the
Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
. This would enable settlement by European Americans in the Southeast, where there was a growing demand for access to new lands by them. With the removal of the Indians, whites would be protected from the corrupt "evil" ways of the subordinate natives. The new policy intended to concentrate Native Americans in areas away from encroaching settlers, but it resulted in considerable suffering and many deaths. During the later nineteenth century, Native American tribes resisted the imposition of the reservation system and engaged with the United States Army in what were called the
Indian Wars The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were fought by European governments and colonists in North America, and later by the United States and Canadian governments and American and Canadian settle ...
in the West for decades. Finally defeated by the US military force and continuing waves of encroaching settlers, the tribes negotiated agreements to resettle on reservations. Native Americans ended up with a total of over of land, ranging from arid deserts to prime agricultural land. The Reservation system, though forced upon Native Americans, allotted each tribe a claim to their new lands, protection over their territories, and the right to govern themselves. With the US Senate to be involved only for negotiation and ratification of treaties, the Native Americans adjusted their ways of life and tried to continue their traditions. The traditional tribal organization, a defining characteristic of Native Americans as a social unit, became apparent to the non-native communities of the United States and created a mixed stir of emotions. The tribe was viewed as a highly cohesive group, led by a hereditary, chosen chief, who exercised power and influence among the members of the tribe by aging traditions. Administering the reservation system revealed corruption and abuse at many levels, and often Native Americans were left wanting for supplies, annuities and cash. By the end of the 1880s, many US stakeholders seemed to have reached consensus that the assimilation of Native Americans into American culture was top priority and needed for the peoples' very survival. This was the belief among people who admired them, as well as people who thought they needed to leave behind their tribal landholding, reservations, traditions and ultimately their Indian identities. Senator Henry Dawes launched a campaign to "rid the nation of tribalism through the virtues of private property, allotting land parcels to Indian heads of family." On February 8, 1887, the Dawes Allotment Act was signed into law by President
Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
. Responsible for enacting the allotment of the tribal reservations into plots of land for individual households, the Dawes Act was intended by reformers to achieve six goals: * breaking up of tribes as a social unit, * encouraging individual initiatives, * furthering the progress of native farmers, * reducing the cost of native administration, * securing parts of the reservations as Indian land, and * opening the remainder of the land to white settlers for profit. The Act facilitated assimilation; they would become more "Euro-Americanized" as the government allotted the reservations and the Indians adapted to subsistence farming, the primary model at the time. Native Americans held specific ideologies pertaining to tribal land, to them the land and earth were things to be valued and cared for, it represented the plants and animals that produced and sustained life, it embodied their existence and identity, and was part of their environment of belonging. In contrast to most of their white counterparts, they did not see the land from an economic standpoint. But, many natives began to believe they had to adapt to the majority culture in order to survive. They would have to embrace these beliefs and surrender to the forces of progress. They were to adopt the values of the dominant society and see land as real estate to be bought and developed; they learned how to use their land effectively in order to become prosperous farmers. As they were inducted as citizens of the country, they would shed those of their discourses and ideologies that were presumed to be uncivilized, and exchange them for ones that allowed them to become industrious self-supporting citizens, and finally rid themselves of their "need" for government supervision.


Provisions of the Dawes Act

The important provisions of the Dawes Act were: # A head of family would receive a grant of , a single person or orphan over 18 years of age would receive a grant of , and persons under the age of 18 would receive each; # the allotments would be held in trust by the U.S. Government for 25 years; # Eligible Native Americans had four years to select their land; afterward the selection would be made for them by the Secretary of the Interior. Every member of the bands or tribes receiving a land allotment is subject to laws of the state or territory in which they reside. Every Native American who receives a land allotment "and has adopted the habits of civilized life" (lived separate and apart from the tribe) is bestowed with United States citizenship "without in any manner impairing or otherwise affecting the right of any such Indian to tribal or other property". The
Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to: * Secretary of the Interior (Mexico) * Interior Secretary of Pakistan * Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines) * United States Secretary of the Interior See also

*Interior ministry ...
could issue rules to assure equal distribution of water for irrigation among the tribes, and provided that "no other appropriation or grant of water by any riparian proprietor shall be authorized or permitted to the damage of any other riparian proprietor." The Dawes Act did not apply to the territory of the: * Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Miami, and Peoria 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 ...
* Osage and Sac and Fox in the
Oklahoma Territory The Territory of Oklahoma was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 2, 1890, until November 16, 1907, when it was joined with the Indian Territory under a new constitution and admitted to the Union as th ...
* any of the reservations of the
Seneca Nation of New York The Seneca Nation of Indians is a federally recognized Seneca tribe based in western New York. They are one of three federally recognized Seneca entities in the United States, the others being the Tonawanda Band of Seneca (also in western New ...
, or * a strip of territory in the State of Nebraska adjoining the Sioux Nation * Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation * The Osage Tribe of Oklahoma Provisions were later extended to the
Wea The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami. Today, the descendants of the ...
, Peoria,
Kaskaskia The Kaskaskia were one of the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in t ...
,
Piankeshaw The Piankeshaw, Piankashaw or Pianguichia were members of the Miami tribe who lived apart from the rest of the Miami nation, therefore they were known as Peeyankihšiaki ("splitting off" from the others, Sing.: ''Peeyankihšia'' - "Piankeshaw Pers ...
, and Western Miami tribes by act of 1889. Allotment of the lands of these tribes was mandated by the Act of 1891, which amplified the provisions of the Dawes Act.


Dawes Act 1891 Amendments

In 1891 the Dawes Act was amended: * Allowed for pro-rata distribution when the reservation did not have enough land for each individual to receive allotments in original quantities, and provided that when land is only suitable for grazing purposes, such land be allotted in double quantities * Established criteria for inheritance * Does not apply to
Cherokee Outlet The Cherokee Outlet, or Cherokee Strip, was located in what is now the state of Oklahoma in the United States. It was a 60-mile-wide (97 km) parcel of land south of the Oklahoma-Kansas border between 96 and 100°W. The Cherokee Outlet wa ...


Provisions of the Curtis Act

The
Curtis Act The Curtis Act of 1898 was an amendment to the United States Dawes Act; it resulted in the break-up of tribal governments and communal lands in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory: the Choctaw, Chickasa ...
of 1898 extended the provisions of the Dawes Act to the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory. It did away with their self-government, including tribal courts. In addition to providing for allotment of lands to tribal members, it authorized the Dawes Commission to make determination of members when registering tribal members.


Provisions of the Burke Act

The
Burke Act The Burke Act (1906), formally known as the General Allotment Act Amendment of 1906 and also called the Forced Fee Patenting Act, amended the Dawes Act of 1887 under which the communal land held by tribes on the Indian reservations was broken up ...
of 1906 amended the sections of the Dawes Act dealing with US Citizenship (Section 6) and the mechanism for issuing allotments. The Secretary of Interior could force the Native American Allottee to accept title for land. US Citizenship was granted unconditionally upon receipt of land allotment (the individual did not need to move off the reservation to receive citizenship). Land allotted to Native Americans was taken out of Trust and subject to taxation. The Burke Act did not apply to any Native Americans 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 ...
.


Effects


Identity and detribalization

The effects of the Dawes Act were destructive on Native American sovereignty, culture, and identity since it empowered the U.S. government to: # legally preempt the sovereign right of Indians to define themselves # implement the specious notion of blood-quantum as the legal criteria for defining Indians # institutionalize divisions between "full-bloods" and "mixed-bloods" # "detribalize" a sizeable segment of the Indian population # legally appropriate vast tracts of Indian land The federal government initially viewed the Dawes Act as such a successful "democratic experiment" that they decided to further exploit the use of blood-quantum laws and the notion of "federal recognition" as the qualifying means for "dispensing other resources and services such as health care and educational funding" to Native Americans long after its passage. Under Dawes, "land parcels were dispersed" in accordance with perceived blood quanta. Indigenous people labeled "full-blooded" were allocated "relatively small parcels of land deeded with trust patents over which the government retained complete control for a minimum of twenty-five years." Those who were labeled "mixed-blood" were "deeded larger and better tracts of land, with 'patents in fee simple' (complete control), but were also forced to accept U.S. citizenship and relinquish tribal status." Additionally, Native Americans who did not "meet the established criteria" as being either "full-blood" or "mixed-blood" were effectively "detribalized," being "deposed of their American Indian identity and displaced from their homelands, discarded into the nebula of American otherness." While the Dawes Act is "typically recognized" as the "primary instigation of divisions between tribal and detribalized Indians," the history of detribalization in the United States "actually precedes Dawes."


Land loss

The Dawes Act ended Native American communal holding of property (with crop land often being privately owned by families or clans), by which they had ensured that everyone had a home and a place in the tribe. The act "was the culmination of American attempts to destroy tribes and their governments and to open Indian lands to settlement by non-Indians and to development by railroads." Land owned by Native Americans decreased from in 1887 to in 1934.Gunn, Steven J
Major Acts of Congress:Indian General Allotment Act (Dawes Act) (1887).
accessed 21 May 2011
Senator Henry M. Teller of
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
was one of the most outspoken opponents of allotment. In 1881, he said that allotment was a policy "to despoil the Indians of their lands and to make them vagabonds on the face of the earth." Teller also said,
the real aim
f allotment F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...
was to get at the Indian lands and open them up to settlement. The provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indians are but the pretext to get at his lands and occupy them. ... If this were done in the name of Greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the name of Humanity ... is infinitely worse.
In 1890, Dawes himself remarked about the incidence of Native Americans losing their land allotments to settlers: "I never knew a white man to get his foot on an Indian's land who ever took it off." The amount of land in native hands rapidly depleted from some to by 1900. The remainder of the land once allotted to appointed natives was declared surplus and sold to non-native settlers as well as railroad and other large corporations; other sections were converted into federal parks and military compounds. The concern shifted from encouraging private native landownership to satisfying the white settlers' demand for larger portions of land. Given the conditions on the Great Plains, the land granted to most allottees was not sufficient for economic viability of farming. Division of land among heirs upon the allottees' deaths quickly led to land fractionalization. Most allotment land, which could be sold after a statutory period of 25 years, was eventually sold to non-Native buyers at bargain prices. Additionally, land deemed to be "surplus" beyond what was needed for allotment was opened to white settlers, though the profits from the sales of these lands were often invested in programs meant to aid the Native Americans. Over the 47 years of the Act's life, Native Americans lost about 90 million acres (360,000 km2) of treaty land, or about two-thirds of the 1887 land base. About 90,000 Native Americans were made landless.


Culture and gender roles

The Dawes Act compelled Native Americans to adopt European American culture by illegalizing Indigenous cultural practices and forcibly indoctrinating settler cultural practices and ideologies into Native American families and children. By forcibly transferring communally-owned Native land into private property, the
Office of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and ...
(OIA) "hoped to transform Native Americans into yeoman farmers and farm wives through the assignment of individual land holdings known as allotments." In an attempt to fulfill this objective, the Dawes Act "outlawed Native American culture and established a code of Indian offenses regulating individual behavior according to Euro-American norms of conduct." Any violations of this code were to be "tried in a Court of Indian Offenses on each reservation." Included with the Dawes Act were "funds to instruct Native Americans in Euro-American patterns of thought and behavior through Indian Service schools." With the legalized seizure of many Native American land holdings, Indigenous structures of domestic life, gender roles, and tribal identity were critically altered, as was intended by European American society. For instance, "an important objective of the Dawes Act was to restructure Native American gender roles." White settlers who encountered Native American societies in the latter-half of the nineteenth century "judged women's work
n Native societies N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...
as lower in status than that of men" and assumed it was a sign of Indigenous women's "disempowerment and drudgery." As a result, "in evolutionary terms, whites saw women's performance of what seemed to be male tasks – farming, home building, and supply gathering – as a corruption of gender roles and an impediment to progress." In reality, the gendered tasks "accorded many Indigenous women esteem and even rewards and status within their tribes." By dividing reservation lands into
privately owned A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...
parcels, legislators hoped to complete the assimilation process by forcing Native Americans to adopt individual households, and strengthen the nuclear family and values of economic dependency strictly within this small household unit. The Dawes Act was thus implemented to destroy "native cultural patterns" by drawing "on theories, common to both ethnologists and material feminists, that saw environmental change as a way to effect social change." Although private property ownership was the "cornerstone" of the act, reformers "believed that civilization could only be effected by concomitant changes to social life" in Indigenous communities. As a result, "they promoted Christian marriages among Indigenous people, forced families to regroup under male heads (a tactic often enforced by renaming), and trained men in wage-earning occupations while encouraging women to support them at home through domestic activities."


Reduction of sovereignty

In 1906 the Burke Act (also known as the forced patenting act) amended the GAA to give the Secretary of the Interior the power to issue allottees a patent 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 ...
to people classified "competent and capable." The criteria for this determination is unclear but meant that allottees deemed "competent" by the Secretary of the Interior would have their land taken out of trust status, subject to taxation, and could be sold by the allottee. The allotted lands of Native Americans determined to be incompetent by the Secretary of the Interior were automatically leased out by the federal government. The act reads:
... the Secretary of the Interior may, in his discretion, and he is hereby authorized, whenever he shall be satisfied that any Native American allottee is competent and capable of managing his or her affairs at any time to cause to be issued to such allottee a patent in fee simple, and thereafter all restrictions as to sale, encumbrance, or taxation of said land shall be removed.
The use of competence opens up the categorization, making it much more subjective and thus increasing the exclusionary power of the Secretary of Interior. Although this act gives power to the allottee to decide whether to keep or sell the land, given the harsh economic reality of the time, and lack of access to credit and markets, liquidation of Indian lands was almost inevitable. It was known by the Department of Interior that virtually 95% of fee patented land would eventually be sold to whites.Robertson, 2002 In 1926, Secretary of the Interior
Hubert Work Hubert Work (July 3, 1860December 14, 1942) was a U.S. administrator and physician. He served as the United States Postmaster General from 1922 until 1923 during the presidency of Warren G. Harding. He served as the United States Secretary of t ...
commissioned a study of federal administration of Indian policy and the condition of Native American people. Completed in 1928, ''The Problem of Indian Administration''commonly known as the
Meriam Report The Meriam Report (1928) (official title: ''The Problem of Indian Administration'') was commissioned by the Institute for Government Research (IGR, better known later as the Brookings Institution) and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The IGR a ...
after the study's director, Lewis Meriam documented fraud and misappropriation by government agents. In particular, the Meriam Report found that the General Allotment Act had been used to illegally deprive Native Americans of their land rights. After considerable debate, Congress terminated the allotment process under the Dawes Act by enacting the
Indian Reorganization Act The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of June 18, 1934, or the Wheeler–Howard Act, was U.S. federal legislation that dealt with the status of American Indians in the United States. It was the centerpiece of what has been often called the "Indian ...
of 1934 ("Wheeler-Howard Act"). However, the allotment process in
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
, under the separate
Alaska Native Allotment Act The Alaska Native Allotment Act of 1906, , enacted on May 17, 1906, permitted individual Alaska Natives to acquire title to up to of land in a manner similar to that afforded to Native Americans. The 1906 Allotment Act was repealed in 1971, when ...
, continued until its revocation in 1971 by the
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971, constituting at the time the largest land claims settlement in United States history. ANCSA was intended to resolve long-standing i ...
. Despite termination of the allotment process in 1934, effects of the General Allotment Act continue into the present. For example, one provision of the Act was the establishment of a trust fund, administered by the
Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...
, to collect and distribute revenues from oil, mineral, timber, and grazing leases on Native American lands. The BIA's alleged improper management of the trust fund resulted in litigation, in particular the case '' Cobell v. Kempthorne'' (settled in 2009 for $3.4 billion), to force a proper accounting of revenues.


Fractionation

For nearly one hundred years, the consequences of federal Indian allotments have developed into the problem of ''fractionation''. As original allottees die, their heirs receive equal, undivided interests in the allottees' lands. In successive generations, smaller undivided interests descend to the next generation. Fractionated interests in individual Native American allotted land continue to expand exponentially with each new generation. Today, there are approximately four million owner interests in the of individually owned trust lands, a situation the magnitude of which makes management of trust assets extremely difficult and costly. These four million interests could expand to 11 million interests by the year 2030 unless an aggressive approach to fractionation is taken. There are now single pieces of property with ownership interests that are less than 0.0000001% or 1/9 millionth of the whole interest, which has an estimated value of 0.004 cent. The economic consequences of fractionation are severe. Some recent appraisal studies suggest that when the number of owners of a tract of land reaches between ten and twenty, the value of that tract drops to zero. Highly fractionated land is for all practical purposes worthless. In addition, the fractionation of land and the resultant ballooning number of trust accounts quickly produced an administrative nightmare. Over the past 40 years, the area of trust land has grown by approximately per year. Approximately 357 million dollars is collected annually from all sources of trust asset management, including coal sales, timber harvesting, oil and gas leases and other rights-of-way and lease activity. No single fiduciary institution has ever managed as many trust accounts as the Department of the Interior has managed over the last century. Interior is involved in the management of 100,000 leases for individual Native Americans and tribes on trust land that encompasses approximately . Leasing, use permits, sale revenues, and interest of approximately $226 million per year are collected for approximately 230,000 individual Indian money (IIM) accounts, and about $530 million per year are collected for approximately 1,400 tribal accounts. In addition, the trust currently manages approximately $2.8 billion in tribal funds and $400 million in individual Native American funds. Under current regulations, probates need to be conducted for every account with trust assets, even those with balances between one cent and one dollar. While the average cost for a probate process exceeds $3,000, even a streamlined, expedited process costing as little as $500 would require almost $10,000,000 to probate the $5,700 in these accounts. Unlike most private trusts, the federal government bears the entire cost of administering the Indian trust. As a result, the usual incentives found in the commercial sector for reducing the number of small or inactive accounts do not apply to the Indian trust. Similarly, the United States has not adopted many of the tools that states and local government entities have for ensuring that unclaimed or abandoned property is returned to productive use within the local community. Fractionation is not a new issue. In the 1920s, the
Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...
conducted a major study of conditions of the Native American and included data on the impacts of fractionation. This report, which became known as the
Meriam Report The Meriam Report (1928) (official title: ''The Problem of Indian Administration'') was commissioned by the Institute for Government Research (IGR, better known later as the Brookings Institution) and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The IGR a ...
, was issued in 1928. Its conclusions and recommendations formed the basis for land reform provisions that were included in what would become the IRA. The original versions of the IRA included two key titles, one dealing with probate and the other with land consolidation. Because of opposition to many of these provisions in Indian Country, often by the major European-American ranchers and industry who leased land and other private interests, most were removed while Congress was considering the bill. The final version of the IRA included only a few basic land reform and probate measures. Although Congress enabled major reforms in the structure of tribes through the IRA and stopped the allotment process, it did not meaningfully address fractionation as had been envisioned by John Collier, then Commissioner of Indian Affairs, or the Brookings Institution. In 1922, the
General Accounting Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal gover ...
(GAO) conducted an audit of 12 reservations to determine the severity of fractionation on those reservations. The GAO found that on the 12 reservations for which it compiled data, there were approximately 80,000 discrete owners but, because of fractionation, there were over a million ownership records associated with those owners. The GAO also found that if the land were physically divided by the fractional interests, many of these interests would represent less than one square foot of ground. In early 2002, the Department of the Interior attempted to replicate the audit methodology used by the GAO and to update the GAO report data to assess the continued growth of fractionation; it found that it increased by more than 40% between 1992 and 2002. As an example of continuing fractionation, consider a real tract identified in 1987 in ''
Hodel v. Irving ''Hodel v. Irving'', 481 U.S. 704 (1987), is a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that a statute ordering the escheat of fractional interests in real property which had been bequeathed to members of the Oglala Sioux tribe was an unconstitu ...
'', 481 U.S. 704 (1987): Fractionation has become significantly worse. As noted above, in some cases the land is so highly fractionated that it can never be made productive. With such small ownership interests, it is nearly impossible to obtain the level of consent necessary to lease the land. In addition, to manage highly fractionated parcels of land, the government spends more money probating estates, maintaining title records, leasing the land, and attempting to manage and distribute tiny amounts of income to individual owners than is received in income from the land. In many cases, the costs associated with managing these lands can be significantly more than the value of the underlying asset.


Criticisms

Angie Debo Angie Elbertha Debo (January 30, 1890 – February 21, 1988),
's, ''And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes'' (1940), claimed the allotment policy of the Dawes Act (as later extended to apply to 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 ...
through 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 ...
and the
Curtis Act of 1898 The Curtis Act of 1898 was an amendment to the United States Dawes Act; it resulted in the break-up of tribal governments and communal lands in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory: the Choctaw, Chickasa ...
) was systematically manipulated to deprive the Native Americans of their lands and resources.Listing
for ''And Still the Waters Run'' at
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...
website (retrieved January 9, 2009).
Ellen Fitzpatrick claimed, Debo's book "advanced a crushing analysis of the corruption, moral depravity, and criminal activity that underlay white administration and execution of the allotment policy."Ellen Fitzpatrick, '' History's Memory: Writing America's Past, 1880–1980'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), , p. 133
excerpt available online
at Google Books.


See also

* Act for the Protection of the People of Indian Territory (Curtis Act), 1898 * Forced Fee Patenting Act (Burke Act), 1906 *
Indian Reorganization Act The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of June 18, 1934, or the Wheeler–Howard Act, was U.S. federal legislation that dealt with the status of American Indians in the United States. It was the centerpiece of what has been often called the "Indian ...
*
Nelson Act of 1889 An act for the relief and civilization of the Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota (51st-1st-Ex.Doc.247; ), commonly known as the Nelson Act of 1889, was a United States federal law intended to relocate all the Anishinaabe people in Minnesot ...
, Minnesota's version of the Dawes Act * Americanization of Native Americans *
Aboriginal title in the United States The United States was the first jurisdiction to acknowledge the common law doctrine of aboriginal title (also known as "original Indian title" or "Indian right of occupancy"). Native American tribes and nations establish aboriginal title by act ...
* Competency Commission *
Land run A land run or land rush was an event in which previously restricted land of the United States was opened to homestead on a first-arrival basis. Lands were opened and sold first-come or by bid, or won by lottery, or by means other than a run. The s ...
*
Diminishment Diminishment is the legal process by which the United States Congress can reduce the size of an Indian reservation. History In 1984, the United States Supreme Court held in '' Solem v. Bartlett'', 465 U.S. 463 (1984), that "only Congress may dimini ...
*
Great Māhele The Great Māhele ("to divide or portion") or just the Māhele was the Hawaiian land redistribution proposed by King Kamehameha III. The Māhele was one of the most important episodes of Hawaiian history, second only to the overthrow of the Hawa ...
*
Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations The Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations implements the land consolidation component of the ''Cobell v. Salazar'' Settlement, which provided $1.9 billion to purchase fractional interests in trust or restricted land from willing sellers at fai ...
*
Checkerboarding (land) Checkerboarding refers to a situation where land ownership is intermingled between two or more owners, resulting in a checkerboard pattern. Checkerboarding is prevalent in the Western United States and Western Canada because of extensive use i ...
*
Indian Removal Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi Riverspecifically, to a de ...
*
Detraditionalization In social theory, detraditionalization refers to the erosion of tradition in religion (secularization, agnosticism, religious disaffiliation) and society in postmodernism. Subscribing individuals in traditional societies believe in established, ...
*
Detribalization Detribalization is the process by which persons who belong to a particular Indigenous ethnic identity or community are detached from that identity or community through the deliberate efforts of colonizers and/or the larger effects of colonialis ...
*
Tribal disenrollment In the United States, tribal disenrollment is a process by which a Native American individual loses citizenship or the right to belong within a Native American tribe. Belonging in Native nations, which was historically a matter of kinship, ha ...
*
Indian termination policy Indian termination is a phrase describing United States policies relating to Native Americans from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and practices with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream ...


Notes


Further reading

* ''Debo, Angie. And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940; new edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), . * Olund, Eric N. (2002). "Public Domesticity during the Indian Reform Era; or, Mrs. Jackson is induced to go to Washington." ''Gender, Place, and Culture'' 9: 153–166. * Stremlau, Rose. (2005). "To Domesticate and Civilize Wild Indians": Allotment and the Campaign to Reform Indian Families, 1875–1887. ''Journal of Family History'' 30: 265–286.


External links


Dawes Act of 1887
full text from the Native American Documents Project
Dawes Act (1887) Information & Videos
– Chickasaw.TV


Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
{{Authority control Native American history of Oklahoma United States federal Native American legislation Aboriginal title in the United States 1887 in American law 49th United States Congress Repealed United States legislation United States federal Indian policy Settlement schemes