What was the purpose of the Dawes General Allotment Act?

The desired effect of the Dawes Act was to get Native Americans to farm and ranch like white homesteaders. An explicit goal of the Dawes Act was to create divisions among Native Americans and eliminate the social cohesion of tribes.

What effect did this allotment policy have on Native Americans?

After 25 years each individual would receive United States citizenship and fee simple title to their land. Tribal lands not allotted to Native Americans on the reservation were to be sold to the United States and the land would be opened for homesteading.

What was the Dawes Act in simple terms?

Overview. The Dawes Act of 1887 authorized the federal government to break up tribal lands by partitioning them into individual plots. Only those Native Americans who accepted the individual allotments were allowed to become US citizens.

What was the purpose of the Dawes General Allotment Act quizlet?

The Dawes Act outlawed tribal ownership of land and forced 160-acre homesteads into the hands of individual Indians and their families with the promise of future citizenship. The goal was to assimilate Native Americans into white culture as quickly as possible.

Who are the Chickasaw Freedmen?

The freedmen were slaves owned by the Five Tribes that were brought with the tribes during the Trail of Tears.

What was the allotment era?

The Allotment and Assimilation Era built upon the goals of the Reservation Era by attempting to control and alter the customs and practices of Native Americans. The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) Indian agents played large roles in the “re-socialization” of Native Americans into Anglo-American culture.

Why did allotment happen?

Allotment, the federal policy of dividing communally held Indian tribal lands into individually owned private property, 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.

What was the outcome of the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887?

The act “was the culmination of American attempts to destroy tribes and their governments and to open Indian lands to settlement by non-Native Americans and to development by railroads.” Land owned by Native Americans decreased from 138 million acres (560,000 km2) in 1887 to 48 million acres (190,000 km2) in 1934.

What was the Dawes Act and why did it fail?

Historian Eric Foner believed “the policy proved to be a disaster, leading to the loss of much tribal land and the erosion of Indian cultural traditions.” The law often placed Indians on desert land unsuitable for agriculture, and it also failed to account for Indians who could not afford to the cost of farming …

What happened to the Chickasaw tribe?

The Chickasaws were one of the last to remove. In 1837, we signed the Treaty of Doaksville with the Choctaw Nation and purchased the right for the settlement of our Chickasaw people in our own district within Choctaw Territory. Most Chickasaws removed to Indian Territory from 1837-1851.