Dawes Severalty Argumentative Essay

The two main actions that the United States government issued towards the Plains Indians were the Homestead Act and the Dawes Act. The Homestead Act correlated with the trend of Manifest Destiny and encouraged settlers to migrate west. The Homestead Act encouraged western migration by providing 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were required to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land. After six months of residency, homesteaders also had the option of purchasing the land from the government for roughly $1.25 per acre. (Primary Documents in American History) The land that the government was distributing belonged to various tribes of the Plains Indians. By having the Homestead Act in effect and encouraging settlers to migrate west, Plains Indians were forced into reservations. The real impact of Manifest Destiny was that it sent many settlers west, without realizing that the settlers were taking land from the Indians. The Indians that lived in the reservations had just enough food to keep their population alive, as well as living in unsanitary conditions with bacteria and diseases everywhere. The two options that the Indians had was to either live in the reservations with little to no food or to face genocide. Some Indian tribes tried to make amends with American troops who ushered the natives to reservations, but some American troops turned on the Indians. One incident of the American troops killing Indians was the Nez Perce war. This war was over a conflict of land and how some US troops did not agree on the settlement of the land. The war resulted in over 100 casualties towards the Indians and was stated as a genocide of and Indian tribe. The second act that was passed by the United States government was the Dawes Act. The Dawes Act authorized the President to survey American

The American colonies were quickly expanding and the Federal Government realized that in order to prosper they needed more land. The Government discovered it could regulate Indian land because of a clause in the Constitution of the United States, which transfers "…sole authority over Indian affairs into the

The Dawes Act of 1887 began the process of allotment. By trying to force Native Americans to become farmers, the federal government cast many groups into poverty. The land which the United States held in trust for Indians was usually not choice farmland. Those trying to make a living off the inhospitable lands of the West found little success. During the interwar period of the early twentieth century, the government made new efforts to alleviate Indians’ position as a marginalized group. Over 10,000 Native Americans volunteered and served with distinction in the armed forces during World War I. In recognition of their efforts, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, making all American Indians United States citizens.

There has been much documentation on the plight of Native Americans throughout the beginnings of this nation. In spite of the attempts by the early government of the United States, the culture of many Native American tribes has survived and even flourished. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 is just one of many examples of how our government attempted to wipe out Native American culture. This paper will discuss the Dawes Act, particularly the time leading up to the act, the act itself, and finally its failure. By understanding the past failures in the treatment of a particular race of people, the government can learn how to protect the rights of all people, especially in a day and age of cultural diversity.

The US saw profit in the native lands. The US wanted the land because it was on the Mississippi River which had many economic benefits because land on the river was more accessible for trading. In the text, Transcript of Jefferson's Secret Message to Congress Regarding the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it states; "First to encourage them to abandon hunting, to apply to raising stock...and thereby prove to themselves that less land and labor will maintain them in this... Secondly: to multiply trading houses among them." The US is trying to encourage the natives to transition into a lifestyle more like theirs which involves more farming and less hunting. By switching, the natives will need less land because they won't need to hunt anymore. The US had plans to open more trading houses for the natives so they could make a profit off of farming. Before the US tried getting the natives to indulge in trading houses, the government tried buying the land from the natives. The natives were becoming nervous and irritated because their land was

The Dawes Act of 1887 was one of the biggest debates in history after the Civil War. The plan was meant to help American Indians, but it had many flaws and downfalls that it hurt them more than it helped. The act, proposed by Senator Henry Dawes in 1887, granted plots of land of different sizes, depending on family rank and age, to Native Americans. It also made it possible for any Native American born in the United States a path to citizenship. It stated that all the Native Americans had to do was adopt an American way of life. This part of the act was called assimilation, it stated that the Native Americans should adopt a new way of life that is more similar to the American culture. Many Native Americans didn’t want to change how they live

Before reading Joel Spring’s text, Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality, I assumed by the late 1800s that Native Americans would be allowed to be citizens in the United States. So I was shocked to discover that the first Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1901. Unfortunately, the only Native Americans to receive citizenship at the time were ones were considered civilized because they adopted European culture (Spring, 2016). It is astonishing to me that our government forced Native Americans to give up their culture and adopt ours if they

After the Dawes Act was passed, the Government stripped the tribes of their authority and made it very difficult for each of them to maintain their traditional ways of life. The tribes finally decided that they needed some type of authority. This authority came with land ownership and the allotment of land was the closest to land ownership they were going to get. They all agreed to the Dawes Act by 1902 and forfeited their

Supposedly a mission to civilize the “savages”. Basically, to convert them into becoming a white American as much as possible, rather than being the dirty savage that they depicted them to be. This included their religion/beliefs, clothing, independence, how they acted, and even simple things like hair style. Children had to go to boarding schools away from their parents and or tribe so that they could not be influenced, and this way they would grow up as a “true American”. “Where they believed the young people could be educated to abandon tribal ways” (Wingerter, Claire. "APUSH Chapter 16 IDs." Flashcards. N.p., 2016. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.). The Dawes Act did promise citizenship to the Indians who took advantage of this policy and adapted to the life of a “civilized” American, but wasn’t necessarily done nor very helpful. With this act, it “was supposed to encourage Indians to become farmers” ("Digital History." Digital History. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.), but ended up being just another way to eliminate the ownership of land for tribes and transfer that ownership to individual owners. “Federal policy was enshrined in the General Allotment (Dawes) Act of 1887 which decreed that Indian Reservation land was to be divided into plots and allocated to individual Native Americans.” (Boxer, Andrew. "Native

As Document I shows Native Americans were being cheated out of their land, actually most of their land was being sold. In 1887, the Dawes Severalty Act was passed by congress. The Dawes act divided small plots for each family. But the farmers got their fill as well. On the reservation there were another 90 million acres which were fertile and was often sold to white settlers. As Native American lands went down White settlers land increased. As shown in Document B. Land trades and began to pop up all around the country.

The United States government also wanted to gain control of the Indian Tribes territories for its own reason. They government believed the land could help boost the economy of the United States. The federal government also wanted to have control of the Indians land so that they could sell it to land speculators and settlers who would move on to the land

The purchase of Louisiana doubled the United States in size and was the key to the beginning of westward expansion. This expansion of the U.S. served as one of the defining topics of American history but contrarily, it nearly demolished the entire democracy. Because of Louisiana’s high birth rate and rapid immigration, the United States’ population increased from about five million to more than twenty-three million people. Such expeditious growth as well as economic depressions drove millions of Americans to the west in search of fresh territory and opportunities also known as manifest destiny. At the start of the 1830’s almost one hundred twenty-five thousand Native Americans lived on southeast acres that their ancestors had inhabited for generations. But then President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian removal act which gave the government the authority to trade native held land for land to the west that the United States had obtained with the purchase of Louisiana. By the closing of the decade, only a few Natives were left because the Federal government mandated that they abandon their homeland and go to designated Indian territory. This expedition was better known as the Trail of Tears. The purpose of these reservations was to bring the Native Americans under United States government control, eliminate conflict between the Indians and settlers, and finally to further encourage Native Americans to take on the habits of settlers. In exchange tribes usually received money but it was never a lot and the majority were spent on purchasing food and supplies from traders. But the daily living conditions of the reservations primarily had the most catastrophic results with devastating and long lasting effects. Overall, the rapid territorial expansionism resulted in relocation and brutal mistreatment of Native American occupants of territories now occupied by the United

Passed in 1887, the General Allotment Act, or the Dawes Act, allotted, or parceled, portions of Native American reservations into individual and family hands. The authority of allotment was granted to the President of the United States.

However, this ban did not prevent the whites from trying to obtain the portions of land that the Indians owned. The Dawes Act was “a land grab that forced the Indians to sell large portions of their land to the government for white settlement” (Kauffman). This Dawes Act also had the potential to deprive the Indians of their lands. The rule was, “if the Indians did not select their land within four years, then government agents would select it for them” (Kauffman). The government had agents sent out to select the land for the Indians. The agents gave the poor and infertile lands to the Indians while making sure that the finest lands were sold to the whites and railroad investors. These agents were who conned the Indians into giving up their lands before they fully owned them. By giving the Indians infertile land, it made farming very difficult. This caused the Indians to sell or even give the land to the whites. These agents also contributed to the idea that critics had about the Dawes Act being just another attempt by the whites to take the Indians

The wind was whipping fiercely when Nikki Maratea, her younger sister Alex, and Nikki's 3-week-old son Derrian went to catch an elevated train in Philadelphia near the home they shared with their mother. Thinking she had put the brake on the stroller, Nikki, 20, let it go to argue with the cashier, who insisted she pay the $2 fare before moving to the platform. A moment later Alex, then 10, looked toward her nephew—but he and his stroller were gone. "I said, 'Nikki,'" Alex recalls, "'where's the baby?'" They could hear Derrian's cries, but saw no sign of him. "Then," Alex says, "I looked down." What she saw was a nightmare: The stroller, blown by the wind, was lying on the tracks, about four