They came to define tribal belonging in terms of blood-quantum. The Dawes Commission was established in 1893 as a delegation to register members of tribes for allotment of lands. The " Five Civilized Tribes" ( Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole) in Indian Territory were initially exempt from the Dawes Act. policies for Native Americans in history. 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. citizenship, while others were " detribalized." Between 18, Native Americans "lost control of about 100 million acres of land" or about "two-thirds of the land base they held in 1887" as a result of the act.
Native peoples who were deemed to be "mixed-blood" were forced to accept U.S. For example, in 1895, Congress passed the Hunter Act, which administered Dawes "among the Southern Ute." 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." 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." Īlthough the act was passed in 1887, the federal government implemented the Dawes Act "on a tribe-by-tribe basis" thereafter. The act allowed tribes the option to sell the lands that remained after allotment to the federal government. This would convert traditional systems of land tenure into a government-imposed system of private property by forcing Native Americans to "assume a capitalist and proprietary relationship with property" that did not previously exist in their cultures. 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. Dawes of Massachusetts) regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States.
The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 named after Senator Henry L.