The Dawes Act was preceded by a long period of time of the United States government using laws and documents to remove Native Americans from their land. In the 16th and early 17th century many Federal Indian policies were centered around removing Native Americans from their land, creating treaties and reservations, and declaring war against Native American groups that did cede to demands made by them from the government. Congress passed the Dawes Act on February 8th, 1887 in an effort to legally break up previously labeled reservation land from being land shared by members of a tribe to being land parceled out to individual people. Land was given to Native American males over the age of 18 but also a lot of the land was given to non-Native American individuals or corporations.
The Dawes Commission was a committee put together by President Cleveland to negotiate with the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole Tribes. In these negotiations, the government gained the “permission” of these tribes to break up the land once again in new ways. Additionally, In exchange for a share of common property for the tribes, tribes agreed to getting rid of their own government and recognizing the United States government and federal laws as their own government and laws now. Members of tribes who wanted land had to enroll with the Office of International Affairs and were placed on the “Dawes roll”. The Dawes Roll was a list of people recognized as part of tribes and were eligible for an allotment of land.
In the following decades, millions of acres of formerly Native American communal lands were sold off to non-Native peoples. There was a breakdown of tribal social structure due to isolation on these allotments of land and tribes were no longer as united as they used to be. This shows that the US government was ultimately successful in their goal of breaking apart Native American culture that was looked down upon and encouraged isolation and assimilation to become the average white American farmer at the time.
