To provide an overview of what the Allotment Policy was, it was also known as the Dawes Act. As mentioned within class discussions, it was named after Senator Henry Dawes. This policy allowed Indian people to receive a portion of land. Indian tribal land would be divided into small sections or allotments. These would be for Indian families or individuals. When it comes to how many acres will be provided, it all depends on who it is. The amount of land granted to each family is 160 acres. On the other hand, 80 acres will be given per individual. Orphans who are under 18 years of age, can only receive half of the land an individual would get. In that case, they receive 40 acres. Once the allotment was processed and completed, meaning people …show more content…
As an Oglala or Rosebud Sioux Indian writer of this autobiography, Luther Standing Bear focuses on telling the story of his father’s experience in interacting with others about alloting lands. Taking place in South Dakota, year 1928, his father reached out to Yellow Horn, a traditional chief, about the Allotment Policy. Despite Indian chiefs being against the allotment proposition due to having the idea they were already at a disadvantage, Luther’s father was for the policy. He explained how they would be able to receive a piece of land of 320 acres, which would be used for farming. When viewing this option, his father addressed the idea of asking for a full section of land that claims a total of 640 acres to make up for the land that is not suitable for farming. Not only that, but the tribe will receive $3 million for land. This would be used for education children, and the other half is to be paid within 25 years. In addition, horses, farm wagons, a milk cow, farming implements, along with $50 in cash to put towards building a house. Although this sounds very benefitial, others were against it. It was seen as a “sweet talk” to trick the Indians into the agreement. Overall, they were not in favor of the allotment, but another council was held to provide more information or clarity. Reading …show more content…
Some tribes may include the Cherokee and Hopi. According to our class lectures, there was an outrage due to the allotments. The Cherokee who are from Oklahoma, expressed their thoughts in front of Congress. Due to the strategy used when it came to the Allotment Policy, the land was difficult to farm on. In class we had discussed how the profits of all the corn produced would only make a slight dent within debt. As a result of bad crops growing, the debt started to accumulate. It was thought that the entire system was rigged. The allotments became a checkerboard. The meaning behind the term checkerboard, is that Indian families or individuals were becoming surrounded by White settlers who claimed open land. The goal of the checkerboard was to break up the Native American communities. Not to forget, the Hopi had petitioned that they needed more land due to infertility of the soil. Although they tried to voice their opinions, feedback or answers were never given back. Eventually, they had given
Ohioans that petitioned to Congress about the monopolizing of acreage by private companies on the frontier after the War of Independence, the farmers also asked for “vacant lands”
The Lakota, an Indian group of the Great Plains, established their community in the Black Hills in the late eighteenth century (9). This group is an example of an Indian community that got severely oppressed through imperialistic American actions and policy, as the Americans failed to recognize the Lakota’s sovereignty and ownership of the Black Hills. Jeffrey Ostler, author of The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground, shows that the Lakota exemplified the trends and subsequent challenges that Indians faced in America. These challenges included the plurality of groups, a shared colonial experience, dynamic change, external structural forces, and historical agency.
up Cherokee lands for very few dollars. This proposal had not been approved by the
During the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had formed policies which reduced land allotted to Native Americans. By enforcing these laws as well as Anglo-American ideals, the United States compromised indigenous people’s culture and ability to thrive in its society.
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
It divided the Indian tribes tremendously, which made it easier for the whites to control and this allowed the government to take over the new land for themselves stealing it from the Natives. With this policy, Indians were restricted to where they could live and hunt. In some cases, their traditional hunting grounds were “off-limits” to them, which forced them either not to listen and hunt where they usually had (ended badly due to it being a policy), or having to find food/necessities in the land they were provided/given to them. This scenario was constantly repeated until it became impossible for Native people to live as they always had. It “was a system composed of several treaties set upon the Native Americans in an attempt to bring order and peace between them and the people of the United States, and it ended with the many
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.
When first considering the Navajo-Hopi land dispute as a topic of research, I anticipated a relatively light research paper discussing the local skirmishes between the two tribes. However, my research has yielded innumerable volumes of facts, figures and varying viewpoints on a struggle that has dominated the two tribes for over 100 years. The story is an ever-changing one, evolving from local conflict to forcible relocation to big business interests. The incredible breadth of the dispute's history makes it impossible to objectively cover the entire progression from all viewpoints. I will therefore focus on current issues - and their historical causes - facing the two tribes as they mutually approach
In the time period of 1800-1850 white Americans expanded across the vast lands on the western side of the continent and regularly encountered conflict with various Indian nations. In these documents, interactions for the various Indian nations were subjected to different cultivation between each tribe per say that there were responses that filled different needs and demands. Some tribes provided benefits such as agriculture and household manufacture and produced the idea that settlements to be blended and conform into one people. Other interactions created conflict because some of our land purchases were not 100% in compliance with the constitution. Yet some Indian nations
Next up were the Chickasaws. They were promised land and protection in exchange for their cooperation, but the War Department refused to hold up their end of the deal. The entire group of Natives were forced to leave their land without any benefits, and they ended up having to pay to live on another tribe’s land (PBS.org).
It was wrong for the government to reduce the Indian’s land by 90 million acres. Was it not enough forcing them onto reservations? They were taken from their native lands, placed in reservations, and then had their land reduced. How could this possible be considered okay? In the course book on page 546, it talks about how in order to protect the Indians from land speculators, the government held the allotted land in trust. The Indians could not sell the land for 25 years. I did some research on the Dawes Allotment Act and found an article titled, “Cleveland signs devastating Dawes Act into law”, written by the History.com Staff. In this article, it talks more about the trust the lands were put in. As you can see the American ideals of “freedom”
When Curtis came to this land he had to find a way to make the Indians feel as if they were not losing their land. A way to
Not knowing how to cultivate the land or domesticate animals, the Cherokee at a standstill. The Whites, who knew how to cultivate the land and domesticate animals, would have been able to utilize the land to its fullest potential instead of withering away precious resources. The Whites tried various methods to persuade the Cherokee to part with their land, but they refused and were frequently abused. “… we have come to the conclusion that this nation cannot be reinstated in its present location, and that the question left to us and to every Cherokee, is, whether it is more desirable to remain here, with all the embarrassments with which we must be surrounded, or to seek a country where we may enjoy our own laws, and live under our own vine and fig-tree.” If the Cherokee had agreed to relocate further west, they would not have had to go through adversity. The Whites would have left them alone, free to create their own laws and free to do what they wanted. The Cherokee pushed their source of food westward leaving a shortage of deer and buffalo and they did not have the knowledge or resources to cultivate the land. Due to these facts, they were not self-sufficient and would not have been able to survive using their outdated methods of living. Compared to the Whites, the Cherokee population was miniscule, spread across a vast amount of land. “The
Five specific groups were especially affected by industrialization: Native Americans, African Americans, children, farmers, and immigrants. Due to federal and state policies, Native Americans were removed from their traditional land into reservations, which were often smaller, more undesirable land. The Dawes Act of 1887, which broke up reservation lands, was ultimately detrimental to Native Americans. Settlers and federal troops pushed the remaining free tribes off their homelands in the Great Plains, and killed most of the buffalo population on which Native Americans relied for survival (The USA online, n.d.).
With the federal government’s support, many Native tribes have constructed Native Governments and Corporations where the rights to land and money are placed to their own responsibility. What this actually means is that the rights of the people’s land and monetary bonds are transferred from governmental trust to