LAD #25 Dawes Act

The Dawes Act called for the provision of land to indians on various reservations and extentsion of "the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians." the Act gave the president the power to call the assessment of and land for "agricultural and grazing purposes". The concept of the Dawes Act was to replace communal tribe land holdings with individually owned and maintained properties. It was an attempt basically to assimilate the Indians into the larger American society. It gave the Indians an opportunity to become American citizens, even though many did not want this; if "his residence (is) seperate and apart from any tribe of Indians therin, and has adopted the habits of civilized life, (he) is herby declared to be a citizen of the United States, and he is entitled to all rights, privleges, and immunities of such citizens. The Secretary of the Interior was given the power to "prescribe such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary to secure a just and equal distrubution thereof among the Indians residing upon any such reseervation". The provisions of the Dawes Act, however, was not to be extended "to the territory occupied by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Osage, Miamies and Peorias, and Sacs and Foxes, in the Indian territory, nor any of the reservations of the Senecac Nation of the New York Indians in the state of New York, nor to that strip of territory in the state of Nebraska adjoining the Sioux Nation on the south added by executive order." Which is basically almost all the indians I know of.