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72-450: The Fort Belknap Indian Reservation ( Gros Ventre : ’ak3ɔ́ɔyɔ́ɔ , lit.   'the fence' or ’ɔ’ɔ́ɔ́ɔ́nííítaan’ɔ , 'Gros Ventre tribe') is shared by two Native American tribes, the A'aninin ( Gros Ventre ) and the Nakoda ( Assiniboine ). The reservation covers 1,014 sq mi (2,630 km), and is located in north-central Montana. The total area includes

144-487: A defining characteristic of Native Americans as a social unit, became apparent to the non-native communities of the United States. The tribe was viewed as a highly cohesive group, led by a hereditary, chosen chief, who exercised power and influence among the members of the tribe by aging traditions. By the end of the 1880s, some U.S. stakeholders felt that the assimilation of Native Americans into American culture

216-622: A few basic land reforms and probate measures. Although Congress enabled major reforms in the structure of tribes through the IRA and stopped the allotment process, it did not meaningfully address fractionation as had been envisioned by John Collier , then Commissioner of Indian Affairs, or the Brookings Institution. "In 1922, the General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted an audit of 12 reservations to determine

288-407: A government-imposed system of private property by forcing Native Americans to "assume a capitalist and proprietary relationship with property" that did not previously exist in their cultures. Before private property could be dispensed, the government had to determine which Indians were eligible for allotments, which propelled an official search for a federal definition of "Indian-ness". Although

360-402: A home and a place in the tribe. The act "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." Land owned by Native Americans decreased from 138 million acres (560,000 km ) in 1887 to 48 million acres (190,000 km ) in 1934. Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado

432-461: A patent in fee simple, and thereafter all restrictions as to sale, encumbrance, or taxation of said land shall be removed. The use of competence opens up the categorization, making it much more subjective and thus increasing the exclusionary power of the Secretary of Interior. Although this act gave power to the allottee to decide whether to keep or sell the land, given the harsh economic reality of

504-557: A position where we can consolidate these lands, and maybe even help some young Indian operators get started in the cattle ranching business or something like that." In March 2012, the Fort Belknap community received a herd of pure-bred plains bison ( Bison bison bison ) from Yellowstone National Park that had been quarantined at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The tribes on these reservations introduced

576-538: A situation the magnitude of which makes management of trust assets extremely difficult and costly." "These four million interests could expand to eleven million interests by the year 2030 unless an aggressive approach to fractionation is taken." "There are now single pieces of property with ownership interests that are less than 0.0000001% or 1/9 millionth of the whole interest, which has an estimated value of 0.004 cent." The economic consequences of fractionation are severe. Some recent appraisal studies suggest that when

648-575: A statutory period of 25 years, was eventually sold to non-Native buyers at bargain prices. Additionally, land deemed to be surplus beyond what was needed for allotment was opened to White settlers, though the profits from the sales of these lands were often invested in programs meant to aid the Native Americans. Over the 47 years of the Act's life, Native Americans lost about 90 million acres (360,000 km ) of treaty land, or about two-thirds of

720-508: A successful democratic experiment that they decided to further explore the use of blood-quantum laws and the notion of federal recognition as the qualifying means for "dispensing other resources and services such as health care and educational funding" to Native Americans long after its passage. Under Dawes, land parcels were dispersed in accordance with perceived blood quanta. Indigenous people labeled "full-blooded" were allocated "relatively small parcels of land deeded with trust patents over which

792-521: A total of over 155 million acres (630,000 km ) of land, ranging from arid deserts to prime agricultural land. The Reservation system , while compulsory for Native Americans, allotted each tribe a claim to their new lands, protection over their territories, and the right to govern themselves. With the U.S. Senate to be involved only for negotiation and ratification of treaties, the Native Americans adjusted their ways of life and tried to maintain their traditions. The traditional tribal organization,

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864-404: Is now North Dakota. These treaties established the tribes' sacred territories within the continental United States. The Fort Belknap Reservation was established in 1888 in north-central Montana. It comprises a small portion of their vast ancestral territory. Their former territory extended across all of north-central and eastern Montana and portions of eastern North Dakota. Fort Belknap Reservation

936-585: Is returned to productive use within the local community." Fractionation is not a new issue. In the 1920s, the Brookings Institution conducted a major study of the conditions of the Native Americans and included data on the impacts of fractionation. This report, which became known as the Meriam Report , was issued in 1928. Its conclusions and recommendations formed the basis for land reform provisions that were included in what would become

1008-523: Is the name applied by specialists in Algonquian linguistics. Arapaho and Atsina are dialects of a common language usually designated by scholars as "Arapaho-Atsina". Historically, this language had five dialects, and on occasion specialists add a third dialect name to the label, resulting in the designation, "Arapaho-Atsina-Nawathinehena". Compared with Arapaho proper, Gros Ventre had three additional phonemes /tʲ/ , /ts/ , /kʲ/ , and /bʲ/ , and lacked

1080-533: Is valued at $ 8,000. It has 439 owners, one-third of whom receive less than $ .05 in annual rent and two-thirds of whom receive less than $ 1. The largest interest holder receives $ 82.85 annually. The common denominator used to compute fractional interests in the property is 3,394,923,840,000. The smallest heir receives $ .01 every 177 years. If the tract were sold (assuming the 439 owners could agree) for its estimated $ 8,000 value, he would be entitled to $ .000418. The administrative costs of handling this tract are estimated by

1152-733: The Meriam Report after the study's director, Lewis Meriam  – documented fraud and misappropriation by government agents. In particular, the Meriam Report claimed that the General Allotment Act had been used to illegally deprive Native Americans of their land rights. After considerable debate, Congress terminated the allotment process under the Dawes Act by enacting the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 ("Wheeler-Howard Act"). However,

1224-513: The bison , commonly called buffalo, for seasonal hunting; they made use of all parts of the massive animals, for food, clothing, cord, tools, etc. Their food, clothing, and teepees were all derived from the buffalo. The buffalo was the Indian "staff of life", supporting the nomadic cultures of the Nakoda, Aaniih, and other Plains tribes. The last wild herd of buffalo in the continental United States in

1296-456: The $ 5,700 in these accounts." "Unlike most private trusts, the federal government bears the entire cost of administering the Indian trust. As a result, the usual incentives found in the commercial sector for reducing the number of small or inactive accounts do not apply to the Indian trust. Similarly, the United States has not adopted many of the tools that States and local government entities have for ensuring that unclaimed or abandoned property

1368-912: The 17th century. They migrated from the Minnesota woodlands westward onto the northern plains with their allies, the Plains Cree . The Chippewa called the Nakoda as the Assiniboine people in their language, an Ojibwe word meaning "one who cooks with stones". The Nakoda would heat rocks and put them in rawhide pots to heat water and cook food. The Nakoda peoples live on both the Fort Belknap and Fort Peck Indian Reservations in Montana and on several reserves in Saskatchewan and Alberta , Canada, where they are generally known as Stoney. The Aaniiih and Nakoda were nomadic hunters and warriors. They followed

1440-534: The 1887 land base. About 90,000 Native Americans were made landless. The Dawes Act compelled Native Americans to adopt European American culture by prohibiting Indigenous cultural practices and encouraging settler cultural practices and ideologies into Native American families and children. By transferring communally-owned Native land into private property, the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) "hoped to transform Native Americans into yeoman farmers and farm wives through

1512-680: The 19th century roamed between the Bear Paw Mountains and the Little Rocky Mountains in the lush Milk River valley of Montana. The two tribes are united as one federally recognized government called the Fort Belknap Indian Community. Together, the tribes have formed and maintained a community that has deep respect for its land, its culture, and its heritage. Fort Belknap derives its name from the original military and trading post established on

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1584-821: The Americas is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Dawes Act The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 ) regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States. Named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts , it authorized the President of the United States to subdivide Native American tribal communal landholdings into allotments for Native American heads of families and individuals. This would convert traditional systems of land tenure into

1656-660: The Burke Act (also known as the Forced Patenting Act) amended the GAA to give the Secretary of the Interior the power to issue allottees a patent in fee simple to people classified "competent and capable". The criteria for this determination is unclear but it meant that allottees deemed "competent" by the Secretary of the Interior would have their land taken out of trust status, subject to taxation, and could be sold by

1728-472: The Dawes Act were: Every member of the bands or tribes receiving a land allotment is subject to laws of the state or territory in which they reside. Every Native American who receives a land allotment "and has adopted the habits of civilized life" (lived separate and apart from the tribe) is bestowed with United States citizenship "without in any manner impairing or otherwise affecting the right of any such Indian to tribal or other property". The Secretary of

1800-569: The Dawes Act. The Dawes Commission was established in 1893 as a delegation to register members of tribes for allotment of lands. They came to define tribal belonging in terms of blood-quantum . However, because there was no method of determining precise bloodlines, commission members often assigned "full-blood status" to Native Americans who were perceived as "poorly-assimilated" or "legally incompetent", and "mixed-blood status" to Native Americans who "most resembled whites", regardless of how they identified culturally. The Curtis Act of 1898 extended

1872-632: The Dawes Allotment Act into law. Responsible for enacting the allotment of the tribal reservations into plots of land for individual households, the Dawes Act was intended by reformers to achieve six goals: The Act facilitated assimilation; they would become more "Americanized" as the government allotted the reservations and the Indians adapted to subsistence farming, the primary model at the time. Native Americans held specific ideologies pertaining to tribal land. Some natives began to adapt to

1944-588: The Dawes Commission to make determinations of members when registering tribal members. The Burke Act of 1906 amended the sections of the Dawes Act dealing with US Citizenship (Section 6) and the mechanism for issuing allotments. The Secretary of Interior could force the Native American Allottee to accept title for land. U.S. Citizenship was granted unconditionally upon receipt of land allotment (the individual did not need to move off

2016-620: The Department of the Interior attempted to replicate the audit methodology used by the GAO and to update the GAO report data to assess the continued growth of fractionation." It found that it increased by more than 40% between 1992 and 2002. "As an example of continuing fractionation, consider a real tract identified in 1987 in Hodel v. Irving , 481 U.S. 704 (1987): Tract 1305 is 40 acres (160,000 m ) and produces $ 1,080 in income annually. It

2088-524: The Department of the Interior has managed over the last century. Interior is involved in "the management of 100,000 leases for individual [Native Americans] and tribes on trust land that encompasses approximately 56,000,000 acres (230,000 km ). Leasing, use permits, sale revenues, and interest of approximately $ 226 million per year are collected for approximately 230,000 individual Indian money [(IIM)] accounts, and about $ 530 million per year are collected for approximately 1,400 tribal accounts. In addition,

2160-471: The IRA. "The original versions of the IRA included two key titles; one dealing with probate and the other with land consolidation." Because of opposition to many of these provisions in Indian Country, often by the major European-American ranchers and industry who leased land and other private interests, most were removed while Congress was considering the bill. The final version of the IRA included only

2232-515: The Interior could issue rules to assure equal distribution of water for irrigation among the tribes, and provided that "no other appropriation or grant of water by any riparian proprietor shall be authorized or permitted to the damage of any other riparian proprietor." The Dawes Act did not apply to the territory of the: Provisions were later extended to the Wea , Peoria , Kaskaskia , Piankeshaw , and Western Miami tribes by act of 1889. Allotment of

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2304-606: The Interior sent some 3500 offers to buy back fractionated land worth more than $ 54 million, affecting the future control of 26,000 tracts of land within the boundaries of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. This was under the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations , established as part of the federal government's 2009 settlement of the landmark Cobell v. Salazar suit over federal mismanagement of revenues due Indian landowners under

2376-521: The Milk River. The town of Harlem, Montana, developed about 1 mi (2 km) northeast of the fort. Generations after allotment was made of communal lands 94 years ago to individual tribal households under the Dawes Act , control has become split up among thousands of descendants of original allottees in many federally recognized tribes. The Fort Belknap Reservation has been described as one of

2448-627: The United States has a total 1.9 billion acres of land ) or about "two-thirds of the land base they held in 1887" as a result of the act. The loss of land ownership and the break-up of traditional leadership of tribes produced potentially negative cultural and social effects that have since prompted some scholars to consider the act as one of the most destructive U.S. policies for Native Americans in history. The " Five Civilized Tribes " ( Cherokee , Chickasaw , Choctaw , Muscogee , and Seminole ) in Indian Territory were initially exempt from

2520-809: The United States that the Indian territory would remain Indian land in perpetuity," completed the obliteration of tribal land titles in Indian Territory, and prepared for admission of the territory land to the Union as the state of Oklahoma . The Dawes Act was amended again in 1906 under the Burke Act . During the Great Depression , the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration passed the US Indian Reorganization Act (also known as

2592-555: The Wheeler-Howard Law) on June 18, 1934. It prohibited any further land allotment and created a " New Deal " for Native Americans, which renewed their rights to reorganize and form self-governments in order to "rebuild an adequate land base." During the early 1800s, the United States federal government attempted to address what it referred to as the "Indian Problem." Numerous European immigrants were settling on

2664-771: The act was passed in 1887, the federal government implemented the Dawes Act on a tribe-by-tribe basis thereafter. For example, in 1895, Congress passed the Hunter Act , which administered the Dawes Act among the Southern Ute . The nominal purpose of the act was to protect the property of the natives as well as to compel " their absorption into the American mainstream ". Native peoples who were deemed to be mixed-blood were granted U.S. citizenship, while others were " detribalized ". Between 1887 and 1934, Native Americans ceded control of about 100 million acres of land (as of 2019

2736-765: The allotment process in Alaska , under the separate Alaska Native Allotment Act , continued until its revocation in 1971 by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act . Despite the termination of the allotment process in 1934, the effects of the General Allotment Act continue into the present. For example, one provision of the Act was the establishment of a trust fund, administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs , to collect and distribute revenues from oil, mineral, timber, and grazing leases on Native American lands. The BIA's alleged improper management of

2808-448: The allottee. The allotted lands of Native Americans determined to be incompetent by the Secretary of the Interior were automatically leased out by the federal government. The act reads: ... the Secretary of the Interior may, in his discretion, and he is hereby authorized, whenever he shall be satisfied that any Native American allottee is competent and capable of managing his or her affairs at any time to cause to be issued to such allottee

2880-716: The area referred to them as the " Water Falls People". Lacking a common language, they used physical signs to indicate some terms. The sign for waterfall was the passing of the hands over the stomach. The French traders interpreted this as meaning "big belly" and called the Aaniiih the Gros Ventre, meaning "big belly" in the French language. The Nakoda (meaning the Generous Ones) split with the Yanktonai Sioux in

2952-593: The assignment of individual land holdings known as allotments." In an attempt to fulfill this objective, the Dawes Act "outlawed Native American culture and established a code of Indian offenses regulating individual behavior according to Euro-American norms of conduct." Any violations of this code were to be "tried in a Court of Indian Offenses on each reservation." Included with the Dawes Act were "funds to instruct Native Americans in Euro-American patterns of thought and behavior through Indian Service schools." With

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3024-448: The assimilation process by forcing Native Americans to adopt individual households and strengthen the nuclear family and values of economic dependency strictly within this small household unit. The Dawes Act was thus implemented to destroy "native cultural patterns" by drawing "on theories, common to both ethnologists and material feminists, that saw environmental change as a way to effect social change." Although private property ownership

3096-564: The bison to their local ranges, a century after they were exterminated in the area. The Fort Belknap Indian Community Grassland Restoration Project is a partnership between the reservation and the Bureau of Land Management. In December 2021, 30 swift fox ( Vulpes velox ) individuals from Colorado were transported to the reserve and reintroduced, after swift foxes were extirpated from the area 50 years before. Black-footed ferrets have also been reintroduced. Gros Ventre language Atsina

3168-522: The culture. They adopted the values of the dominant society and saw land as real estate to be bought and developed; they learned how to use their land effectively to become prosperous farmers. As they were inducted as citizens of the country, they would shed those of their discourses and ideologies presumed to be uncivilized and exchange them for ones that allowed them to become industrious, self-supporting citizens, and finally rid themselves of their need for government supervision. The important provisions of

3240-474: The eastern border of the Indian territories (where most of the Native American tribes had been relocated). Conflicts between the groups increased as they competed for resources and operated according to different cultural systems. Searching for a quick solution to their problem, Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Medill proposed establishing "colonies" or "reservations" that would be exclusively for

3312-546: The government retained complete control for a minimum of twenty-five years." Those who were labeled "mixed-blood" were "deeded larger and better tracts of land, with 'patents in fee simple' (complete control), but were also forced to accept U.S. citizenship and relinquish tribal status." Additionally, Native Americans who did not "meet the established criteria" as being either "full-blood" or "mixed-blood" were effectively "detribalized", being "deposed of their American Indian identity and displaced from their homelands, discarded into

3384-538: The land, once allotted to appointed natives, was declared surplus and sold to non-native settlers as well as railroad and other large corporations; other sections were converted into federal parks and military compounds. Most allottees given land on the Great Plains were not successful at achieving economic viability via farming. Division of land among heirs upon the allottees' deaths quickly led to land fractionalization. Most allotment land, which could be sold after

3456-483: The lands of these tribes was mandated by the Act of 1891, which amplified the provisions of the Dawes Act. In 1891 the Dawes Act was amended: The Curtis Act of 1898 extended the provisions of the Dawes Act to the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory. It did away with their self-government, including tribal courts. In addition to providing for allotment of lands to tribal members, it authorized

3528-467: The main portion of their homeland and off-reservation trust land . The tribes reported 2,851 enrolled members in 2010. The capital and largest community is Fort Belknap Agency , at the reservation's north end, just south of the city of Harlem, Montana , across the Milk River . In 2013, the tribes received some bison and have reintroduced them to the local range. In June 2015, the U.S. Department of

3600-600: The most fractionated in the country in terms of its landholdings, with an estimated 75% of land on the reservation being fractionated under individual owners. As part of the 2009 settlement of the Cobell v. Salazar class-action suit, the Department of Interior has set up the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations to buy back such fractionated land from descendants, on a purely voluntary basis, with market value being offered. The land portions of those who accept

3672-480: The name of greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the name of humanity ... is infinitely worse. In 1890, Dawes himself remarked about the incidence of Native Americans losing their land allotments to settlers: "I never knew a White man to get his foot on an Indian's land who ever took it off." The amount of land in native hands rapidly depleted from some 150 million acres (610,000 km ) to 78 million acres (320,000 km ) by 1900. The remainder of

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3744-642: The natives, similar to those which some native tribes had created for themselves in the east. It was a form of relocation whereby the US government would offer a transfer of the natives from current locations to areas in the region beyond the Mississippi River . This would enable settlement by European Americans in the Southeast, where there was a growing demand for access to new lands. The new policy intended to concentrate Native Americans in areas away from

3816-422: The nebula of American otherness." While the Dawes Act is "typically recognized" as the "primary instigation of divisions between tribal and detribalized Indians," the history of detribalization in the United States "actually precedes Dawes." The Dawes Act ended Native American communal holding of property (with cropland often being privately owned by families or clans ), by which they had ensured that everyone had

3888-589: The new settlers. During the later nineteenth century, Native American tribes resisted the imposition of the reservation system and engaged with the United States Army (in what were called the Indian Wars in the West) for decades. Finally defeated by the U.S. military force and continuing waves of new settlers, the tribes negotiated agreements to resettle on reservations. Native Americans ended up with

3960-399: The next generation. Fractionated interests in individual Native American allotted land continue to expand exponentially with each new generation. In 2004, Ross Swimmer , Special Trustee for American Indians at the U.S. Department of the Interior , stated that there were "approximately four million owner interests in the 10,000,000 acres (40,000 km ) of individually owned trust lands,

4032-643: The number of owners of a tract of land reaches between ten and twenty, the value of that tract drops to zero. In addition, the fractionation of land and the resultant ballooning number of trust accounts quickly produced an administrative nightmare. Over the past 40 years, the area of trust land has grown by approximately 80,000 acres (320 km ) per year. Approximately 357 million dollars is collected annually from all sources of trust asset management, including coal sales, timber harvesting, oil and gas leases and other rights-of-way and lease activity. No single fiduciary institution has ever managed as many trust accounts as

4104-410: The offers will be put in federal trust under control of the tribe, so it can increase the communal land base and improve its ability to manage resources for its members. In 2015, "[m]ore than 3,500 buy-back offers were mailed to tribal landowners at the beginning of June. Some amounted to less than $ 100, others total tens or even hundreds of thousands [of dollars]." In June 2015, Interior employees came to

4176-403: The provisions of the Dawes Act to the "Five Civilized Tribes", required the abolition of their governments and dissolution of tribal courts, allotment of communal lands to individuals registered as tribal members, and sale of lands declared surplus. This law was "an outgrowth of the land rush of 1889 , and completed the extinction of Indian land claims in the territory. This violated the promise of

4248-402: The reservation to discuss the program in more detail. They reviewed up to $ 54 million in offers with landowners who may be interested in selling their portions. These offers apply to 26,000 tracts of land, most very small, within the boundaries of the Fort Belknap reservation. Margey Azure, tribal coordinator of the program, believes it can help both individuals and the tribe. She said, "We're in

4320-472: The reservation to receive citizenship). Land allotted to Native Americans was taken out of Trust and subject to taxation. The Burke Act did not apply to any Native Americans in Indian Territory . The effects of the Dawes Act were destructive on Native American sovereignty, culture, and identity since it empowered the U.S. government to: The federal government initially viewed the Dawes Act as such

4392-535: The seizure of many Native American land holdings, indigenous structures of domestic life, gender roles, and tribal identity were critically altered in order to meld with society. For instance, "an important objective of the Dawes Act was to restructure Native American gender roles." White settlers who encountered Native American societies in the latter half of the nineteenth century "judged women's work [in Native societies] as lower in status than that of men" and assumed it

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4464-456: The severity of fractionation on those reservations. The GAO found that on the 12 reservations for which it compiled data, there were approximately 80,000 discrete owners but, because of fractionation, there were over a million ownership records associated with those owners. The GAO also found that if the land were physically divided by the fractional interests, many of these interests would represent less than one square foot of ground. In early 2002,

4536-551: The time, and lack of access to credit and markets, liquidation of Indian lands was almost inevitable. It was known by the Department of Interior that virtually 95% of fee-patented land would eventually be sold to whites. In 1926, Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work commissioned a study of the federal administration of Indian policy and the condition of Native American people. Completed in 1928, The Problem of Indian Administration  – commonly known as

4608-452: The trust currently manages approximately $ 2.8 billion in tribal funds and $ 400 million in individual Native American funds." "Under current regulations, probates need to be conducted for every account with trust assets, even those with balances between one cent and one dollar. While the average cost for a probate process exceeds $ 3,000, even a streamlined, expedited process...costing as little as $ 500 would require almost $ 10,000,000 to probate

4680-465: The trust fund resulted in litigation, in particular the case Cobell v. Kempthorne (settled in 2009 for $ 3.4 billion), to force a proper accounting of revenues. For over one hundred thirty years, the consequences of federal Indian allotments have developed into the problem of fractionation . As original allottees die, their heirs receive equal, undivided interests in the allottees' lands. In successive generations, smaller undivided interests descend to

4752-656: The trust program. In October 1855, near the confluence of the Judith and Missouri Rivers , the Blackfoot Confederacy signed an agreement to remain at peace with other Native American tribes and with citizens of the United States. The Nakoda Nation, along with the Lakota, Dakota, Mandan, Arikara, Hidatsa, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, had signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851 with the United States government in what

4824-602: The velar fricative /x/ . Theresa Lamebull taught the language at Fort Belknap College (now Aaniiih Nakoda College ), and helped develop a dictionary using the Phraselator when she was 109. As of 2012, the White Clay Immersion School at Aaniiih Nakoda College was teaching the language to 26 students, up from 11 students in 2006. This article related to the Indigenous languages of

4896-500: Was a sign of indigenous women's "disempowerment and drudgery". As a result, "in evolutionary terms, Whites saw women's performance of what seemed to be male tasks – farming, home building, and supply gathering – as a corruption of gender roles and an impediment to progress." In theory, the gendered tasks "accorded many indigenous women esteem and even rewards and status within their tribes." By dividing reservation lands into privately owned parcels, legislators hoped to complete

4968-496: Was a top priority and was needed for the peoples' very survival. This was the belief among people who "admired" them, as well as people who thought they needed to leave behind their tribal landholding, reservations, traditions, and, ultimately, their Indian identities. Senator Henry Dawes launched a campaign to "rid the nation of tribalism through the virtues of private property, allotting land parcels to Indian heads of family." On February 8, 1887, President Grover Cleveland signed

5040-660: Was named after William W. Belknap , the secretary of war in President Ulysses S. Grant 's administration. Belknap was later impeached for corruption. The origins of the name Aaniiih , (meaning the White Clay People) is unclear. Many believe that they painted themselves with white clay found along the Saskatchewan River for ceremony, like the northern Arapaho . Early French fur trappers and traders named this tribe Gros Ventre . Other tribes in

5112-439: Was one of the most outspoken opponents of allotment. In 1881, he said that allotment was a policy "to despoil the Indians of their lands and to make them vagabonds on the face of the earth." Teller also said, the real aim [of allotment] was to get at the Indian lands and open them up to settlement. The provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indians are but the pretext to get at his lands and occupy them. ... If this were done in

5184-448: Was the cornerstone of the act, reformers "believed that civilization could only be effected by concomitant changes to social life" in indigenous communities. As a result, "they promoted Christian marriages among indigenous people, forced families to regroup under male heads (a tactic often enforced by renaming), and trained men in wage-earning occupations while encouraging women to support them at home through domestic activities." In 1906,

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