Lecture 83:
The Implementation of Allotment Policy, 1887-1934
Introduction
In the weeks following
Although such confident predictions did not disappear,
the evidence soon began to suggest that this miraculous transformation would be
neither immediate nor inevitable. Even the most ardent reformers eventually
admitted that complete assimilation might not result directly from the
ownership of land in severalty. They began to suggest that the passage of time,
the development of extensive educational programs, and the enactment of
legislation to restrict traditional aspects of Indian culture might be
necessary to accomplish the acculturation of the Indians. Even the more
immediate, practical goals of allotment policy turned out to be unattainable:
lacking adequate equipment, capital, and training, most Indian allottees could not hope to make a living by farming their
quarter-sections of land, however diligently they worked.
Like the other benefits forecast by idealistic
reformers, the assumption that individually held titles would protect Indian
lands proved to be naive. Contrary to the expectations of many supporters, the
new policy was implemented rapidly and with little evaluation, particularly on
reservations where rich resources had attracted the interest of non-Indians.
Within four years, the act had been amended to allow non-Indians to lease
allotted lands; within twenty years, the trust provisions which prohibited the
sale of allotted lands had been substantially weakened. As Senator Teller had
predicted, the allotment policy was a most effective tool in the hands of
non-Indian homesteaders, lumbermen, miners, ranchers, arid speculators. By
1934, when the policy was formally abandoned, Indian land-holdings had been
reduced by approximately one half. Much of the acreage still owned by Indians
was undesirable land with few apparent resources, and only a fraction of it was
actually being worked by the Indian owners.
Lecture 83: The Implementation of Allotment Policy, 1887—1934
I. The Provisions of
the General Allotment (Dawes) Act of 1887
A.
The president of the
qualified Indian residents of any
reservation which contained lands suitable for agriculture or
grazing; Indians whose tribe had no
reservation and Indians who did not live on a reservation
could be allotted lands from the
public domain.
B.
The act specified the acreage to be allotted where conditions permitted;
if the reservation
lacked sufficient agricultural and
grazing lands to provide allotments of the specified size for
all residents, the allotments were
to be made in proportion to these figures.
1.
Each head of a family would receive 160 acres of agricultural and
grazing land.
2.
Single adults and orphans under the age of 18 would each receive 80
acres of agricultural
and grazing land.
3.
Single children under the age of 18 would each receive 40 acres of
agricultural and
grazing land.
4.
If no agricultural lands were available and the allotment was comprised
entirely of grazing
land, the recipients would be given
larger allotments.
C.
The act established the general procedure to be followed in allotting
Indian lands.
1.
Before the allotment process began, the reservation would be surveyed,
if necessary, and
divided into plots for allotment.
2.
Special agents would be
appointed to supervise the selection of allotments and adjudicate
any disputes.
3.
All eligible Indians were to have four years to select allotments; if,
at the end of that
period, an eligible Indian had not
chosen an allotment, the reservation agent or the special
allotting agent would make and record
a selection in his behalf
4.
As the allotments on the reservation were completed, they would be
forwarded to the
secretary of the interior for approval.
5.
After approving the allotments, the secretary of the interior would
issue trust patents to
the individual allottees.
6.
For a period of twenty-five years, the allotments would remain in trust
status; the
president was authorized to extend
that period if necessary.
a.
During the trust period, the allottees would
be allowed to work their lands.
b.
Until the trust period expired, however, the Indians could not sell,
lease, or dispose of
their allotments; any contracts made on
the lands would have no validity.
7.
At the end of the trust period, the allottees
would receive patents in fee simple for their
lands; they would then be able to
sell, lease, or dispose of their lands as they chose.
8.
Allottees
would receive
state or territory in which their
allotments were located.
9.
When allotments had been made to all eligible Indians on any
reservation, the unallotted
“surplus” lands could be sold to the
homesteaders.
D. The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw,
Chickasaw, Seminole, Osage,
lands in “
Sioux reservation
in
II. The Implementation
of the Dawes Act, 1887—1891
A. Contrary
to the expectations of the reformers who had supported the allotment act, the
implementation of allotment policy
was not a gradual, careful process subject to regular
evaluation.
1.
Allotment proceeded rapidly. Only 7 months after the first allotting
agents began work on
the Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioux
reservation, 6 more tribes had been allotted.
2.
From 1889 to 1891, more than 12 million acres of Indian land was ceded
as a result of
allotment. This represented 11 1/2
percent of the total reservation land (Debo, p. 305).
B.
Allotment policy provoked widespread Indian opposition (Debo, pp.
301-3).
1.
The most organized resistance occurred among
the tribes of “
a.
The principal leader of the Osage rejected the plan.
b.
In 1886 and 1887, though forbidden to leave the reservation, Caddo and
Kiowa
leaders traveled to
legislation.
c.
On his return, the Kiowa leader Lone Wolf called the first of a series
of general
Indian councils on allotment.
d.
After these councils, the tribes of “
the government not to implement the
policy, or at least to delay implementation until
the policy had been tested in the
courts.
2.
Protests in the rest of the country were less organized; Indians on many
reservations
voiced their disapproval of allotment
plans, and a significant number refused to choose
allotments when their reservations were divided.
C.
The original justification for allotment--that it would hasten
assimilation and provide self-
sufficiency--was often ignored in
the rush to allot valuable reservations and open the “surplus”
lands to non-Indian homesteaders,
lumbermen, and miners. Lacking the training, equipment,
and resources necessary for
successful agriculture, few Indians farmed their allotments, and
even fewer farmed them profitably.
III.
A series of laws enacted from 1891 to 1908 further weakened the
provisions of the Dawes Act by
speeding the alienation of Indian
lands and encouraging the Indians to obtain revenue, not by
farming their allotments, but by
leasing or selling them.
A.
The Lease Acts
1.
Recognizing that some allottees were unable to
farm their lands and had no other means
of subsistence, officials proposed
legislation to ease the trust restrictions on allotted
lands.
a.
The legislation was intended to provide an income for elderly and
permanently
disabled allotment holders.
b.
It was also intended to place more of the allotted lands under
cultivation.
c.
The presence of non-Indian lease-holders was expected to provide a model
for the
allottees
who did farm their lands.
2.
The initial lease act was passed in 1891.
a.
It allowed Indian allottees prevented “by
reason of age or other disability” from
farming their lands to lease those
lands for farming or mining purposes.
b. It also revised the acreage specifications
of the original act. As a result, all eligible
Indians (including,
for the first time, married women) would receive 80 acres of farm
land or 160 acres of grazing land (Kinney,
p. 239).
c. At the insistence of reformers, the act
provided safeguards to prevent the alienation
of Indian trust
lands.
(1) Only the seriously disabled were allowed to
make such leases.
(2) The terms of the leases were limited to 3 years.
(3) Any lease made on Indian trust land had to
have approval from the secretary of
the interior.
3. Subsequent legislation removed many of the
provisions intended to protect Indian lands.
a. By 1894 the terms of such leases had been
enlarged.
(1) The vague term “inability” was added as a
condition under which Indian
allotments might be
leased.
(2) The duration of the leases was extended to
5 years.
(3) Reservation agents were given the authority
to approve leases, subject to the
approval of the
Indian department.
b. These less stringent guidelines evoked
numerous protests from such reform interests
as the Lake Mohonk Conference and the Indian Rights Association.
Reformers
argued that the
leases interfered with the primary goal of allotment policy by
encouraging the
Indians to obtain lease income instead of farming their lands.
4. As a result of pressure from the reform
interests, the provisions of the original lease act
were restored in
1897. The renewal of the safeguards caused a temporary drop in the
amount of Indian land leased.
5. The Act of
lands and extended
the term of agricultural leases to 5 years (Kinney, p. 237).
6. Much of the land allotted to Indians was
leased under the provisions of these acts.
a. By 1898, for example, 112,000 of the
140,000 acres allotted to the
Winnebago of
Nebraska had been leased (Prucha, p. 262).
b. By the turn of the century, 7,574 leases,
covering an unknown number of allotments,
had been approved (Otis, p.
149).
B. The Burke Act
1. The Burke Act of 1906 gave the secretary of
the interior the authority to terminate the
trust period on Indian
allotments before its official expiration.
a. Under the provisions of the act, officials
could declare individual Indians competent
to manage their own affairs.
b. Such Indians were given fee patents for
their lands and were free to sell their
allotments immediately.
c. The act also provided that the Indians
would not obtain citizenship or be subject to
state and local laws until
they received fee patents (Prucha, p. 255, n. 61).
2. Initially the provisions of the Burke Act
were applied only to individual cases; from 1906
to 1917, approximately
10,000 Indians received fee patents for their allotments (Debo, p.
314)
3. Under
Sells, “competency” statements
were issued in bulk; entire tribes were declared
competent at once. From
i9l7 to 1921, approximately 20,000 Indians were given fee
patents (Debo, p. 314).
4. The provisions of the Burke
Act, coupled with the conditions of Indian life, virtually
ensured the immediate sale
of many Indian allotments.
a. Many of those declared “competent” under
the loose provisions of the act could
scarcely speak English and
were in fact not able to undertake the responsibility of
managing property and complex
legal documents.
b. Few Indian allotment owners had become
successful farmers; many could obtain an
income only by selling
or leasing their lands or the resources on those lands, at
whatever price they
could obtain.
C. The Act of
guardians for minor heirs),
also resulted in the sale of Indian lands.
D. A series of acts extended the provisions of
the Dawes Act to tribes which had been exempt
from allotment.
1. The Act of
and
2. The Act of
of “
3. Eventually the provisions of the allotment
act were extended to the “Five Civilized
Tribes” of “
a. The western half of “
Territory in 1889.
b. The Curtis Act of 1898, which was the
culmination of five years of effort, provided
for the enrollment and
eventual allotment of the “Five Tribes.”
c. The Act of
of the Indians in “
probate of estates in the
“Five Tribes.”
d. The extension of the allotment act and the
removal of trust restrictions resulted in
enormous land loss among the
“Five Tribes.” Soon after the Act of 1908, nearly
ninety percent of those who
received patents sold their lands (Tyler, p. 105).
E. The Clapp Amendment of 1906 allowed
any White Earth Chippewa of mixed blood to obtain
an immediate fee patent for
his allotted lands. As a result of this legislation, timber interests in
payment (Tyler, p. 104).
F. The result of this legislation, which removed
the protection from Indian lands, was an
enormous loss of Indian
lands and resources.
1. Between 1887 and 1933, Indian land-holdings
fell from 138 million to 47 million acres
(Debo, p. 331).
2. Lacking any other sources of income, many
Indians obtained patents and sold their lands
as quickly as possible.
3. Non-Indian buyers exerted the greatest
pressure on those whose allotments seemed most
valuable, and, as a result,
the allotments which were sold often contained the best
agricultural and grazing
lands, the largest stands of desirable timber, and the most
promising mineral deposits.
Much of the land that remained in Indian hands was arid,
infertile, or lacking
apparent resources. According to one estimate, in 1933 nearly half of
all Indian land was “non-productive, semidesert, mountain, or swamp land” (Spicer, p.
114).
4. Much of the land still held by Indians was
leased.
IV. The Coeur
d’Alene of
405-21)
A.
In 1889 the
non-Indians without their
consent.
B.
Acting on that assumption, the
C.
In 1905, however, Congress appropriated funds for surveying the
initiating the allotment process.
D.
The surveys were carried out in 1906.
E.
In 1908 a
violation of prior agreements. They
were told that because Congress had “given” them their
land, Congress had the right to
take it away.
F.
Allotments were completed in July 1909; they included approximately 114
of the reservation.
G.
In May 1909 the remaining reservation lands were officially opened to
homesteaders; more
than 104,000 non—Indians
applied for homesteads.
H.
For the reservation lands they were forced to cede, the
approximately 2 dollars per acre.
These funds were deposited in a general account, and the
tribe received no accounting of how
they were expended.
I.
Under the provisions of the Burke Act, 197
and 1920; the majority lost their
land soon after they acquired title to it.
J.
By 1933 approximately 40 percent of the allotted land had been sold.
Approximately 45,000 of
the remaining 62,000 acres were
leased. Tribal members thus had direct use of only 17,000 of
the more than 400,000 acres which
had constituted the original
reservation.
Bibliography
Controneo, Ross R., and Jack
Dozier. “A Time
of Disintegration: The
Debo,
Angie. A History of
the Indians of the
Kinney, J.P. A Continent Lost-A
Civilization Won:
Otis,
D.S. The Dawes Act and the Allotment of Indian Lands. Edited by Francis Paul
Prucha.
Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian
Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers
and the Indian, 1865-1900.
Spicer,
Edward H. A Short
History of the Indians of the
Tyler,
S. Lyman. A History of Indian Policy.
Washburn,
Wilcomb E. The Assault on Indian Tribalism: The General Allotment Law (Dawes
Act) of 1887. Edited by Harold M. Hyman.