89-698: The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 , (43 Stat. 253 , enacted June 2, 1924) was an Act of the United States Congress that declared Indigenous persons born within the United States are US citizens . Although the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution says that any person born in the United States and subject to its laws and jurisdiction is a citizen, the amendment had previously been interpreted by
178-403: A Native person born a citizen of a recognized tribal nation was not born an American citizen and did not become one simply by voluntarily leaving his tribe and settling among whites. The syllabus of the decision explained that a Native person "who has not been naturalized, or taxed, or recognized as a citizen either by the United States or by the state, is not a citizen of the United States within
267-607: A Santee Sioux, were interested in Native American integration into the larger society but adamant about preserving the Native American identity. Many were also reluctant to trust the government that had taken their land and violently discriminated against them. One group who opposed the bill was the Onondaga Nation . They believed acceptance of this act was "treason" because the United States Senate
356-784: A conflict between the text of the Statutes at Large and the text of a provision of the United States Code that has not been enacted as positive law, the text of the Statutes at Large takes precedence. Publication of the United States Statutes at Large began in 1845 by the private firm of Little, Brown and Company under authority of a joint resolution of Congress . During Little, Brown and Company's time as publisher, Richard Peters (Volumes 1–8), George Minot (Volumes 9–11), and George P. Sanger (Volumes 11–17) served as editors. In 1874, Congress transferred
445-424: 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
534-622: 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
623-407: 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
712-402: 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
801-477: A more direct path to American citizenship. Although some white citizen groups were supportive of Indian citizenship, Native Americans themselves were divided on the debate. Those who supported it considered the Act a way to secure a long-standing political identity. Those who rejected it were concerned about tribal sovereignty and citizenship. Many leaders in the Native American community at the time, like Charles Santee,
890-461: 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
979-538: 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
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#17327652120791068-641: A state and of the United States, and if an individual should leave his nation or tribe, and take up his abode among the white population, he would be entitled to all the rights and privileges which would belong to an emigrant from any other foreign people. After the American Civil War, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (ratified in 1870, after the Fourteenth Amendment came into effect) repeated the exclusion, declaring: In 1868,
1157-526: 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
1246-508: 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
1335-521: 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,
1424-585: 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
1513-533: 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
1602-468: The Statutes at Large and abbreviated Stat. , are an official record of Acts of Congress and concurrent resolutions passed by the United States Congress . Each act and resolution of Congress is originally published as a slip law , which is classified as either public law (abbreviated Pub.L.) or private law (Pvt.L.), and designated and numbered accordingly. At the end of a congressional session,
1691-591: The Burke Act of 1906, withheld US citizenship granted by the Dawes Act until the trust period for an allotment expired (typically 25 years) or the allottee obtained a fee patent from the government administrator. The Burke Act did "not extend to any Indians in the Indian Territory". After World War I ended, Congress decreed in 1919, that all Native people who had been honorably discharged after serving in
1780-624: The Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney stated that even if a Native American gave up their tribal membership and paid taxes, the only path to citizenship was through naturalization , legislation, or provisions of a treaty: They [the Indian tribes] may without doubt, like the subjects of any foreign government, be naturalized by the authority of Congress and become citizens of
1869-558: The Fourteenth Amendment declared all persons "born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" were citizens. However, the "jurisdiction" requirement was interpreted to exclude most Native Americans, and in 1870, the Senate Judiciary Committee further clarified the matter: "the 14th amendment to the Constitution has no effect whatever upon the status of the Indian tribes within
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#17327652120791958-676: 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,
2047-617: The Statutes at Large includes the text of the Declaration of Independence , Articles of Confederation , the Constitution , amendments to the Constitution , treaties with Native American nations and foreign nations, and presidential proclamations . Sometimes very large or long Acts of Congress are published as their own "appendix" volume of the Statutes at Large . For example, the Internal Revenue Code of 1954
2136-729: The Statutes at Large . Since 1985 the Statutes at Large have been prepared and published by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Until 1948, all treaties and international agreements approved by the United States Senate were also published in the set, but these now appear in a publication titled United States Treaties and Other International Agreements , abbreviated U.S.T. In addition,
2225-550: The United States Code . Once enacted into law, an Act will be published in the Statutes at Large and will add to, modify, or delete some part of the United States Code. Provisions of a public law that contain only enacting clauses, effective dates, and similar matters are not generally codified . Private laws also are not generally codified. Some portions of the United States Code have been enacted as positive law and other portions have not been so enacted. In case of
2314-456: 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
2403-482: 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
2492-421: The 1924 Act. Finally, in 1948, the states withdrew their prohibition on Indian voting because of a judicial decision. Under the 1924 Act, Indigenous people did not have to apply for citizenship, nor did they have to give up their tribal citizenship to become US citizens. Most tribes had communal property, and to have a right to the land, individual Indian people needed to belong to the tribe. Thus, dual citizenship
2581-485: The Act's enforcement. States justified discrimination based on state statutes and constitutions. Three main arguments for Indian voting exclusion were Indian exemption from real estate taxes, maintenance of tribal affiliation, and the notion that Indians were under guardianship or lived on lands controlled by federal trusteeship. By 1947, all states with large Indian populations, except Arizona and New Mexico , had extended voting rights to Native Americans who qualified under
2670-612: The Bureau of Indian Affairs. Such institutions would no longer be in control of citizenship regulations if citizenship were automatically granted to all Indigenous people. They also hoped to empower Indians through citizenship. Other groups for Native American citizenship supported it because of the "guardianship" status they felt the US government should take to protect Indigenous people. They worried Indians were being taken advantage of by non-Indigenous Americans for their land. They advocated that
2759-660: 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
Indian Citizenship Act - Misplaced Pages Continue
2848-793: The Chiefs of the Onondaga sent a letter to President Calvin Coolidge : With little lobbying effort from Native Americans themselves, two primarily white groups shaped the law: Progressive senators and activists, like the "Friends of the Indians." Progressive senators on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee were for the Act because they thought it would reduce corruption and inefficiency in the Department of Interior and
2937-472: 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
3026-569: 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
3115-577: 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
3204-588: 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
3293-561: 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
3382-524: 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,
3471-471: 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
3560-515: 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
3649-863: The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled , That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property. Approved, June 2, 1924. June 2, 1924. [H. R. 6355.] [Public, No. 175.] SIXTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. Sess. I. CHS. 233. 1924. See House Report No. 222, Certificates of Citizenship to Indians, 68th Congress, 1st Session, Feb. 22, 1924. The act has been codified in
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3738-734: The United States Code at Title 8, Sec. 1401(b). At the time of the adoption of the US Constitution under Article One , Native Americans, who were classified as "Indians not taxed", were not considered to be eligible for US citizenship because they were governed by distinct tribes, which functioned in a political capacity. Native persons who were members of a tribe were specifically excluded from representation and taxation. The case of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), according to historian Brad Tennant, established that tribal members "who maintained their tribal ties and resided on tribal land would technically be considered foreigners" living in
3827-606: The United States as wards of the federal government. The earliest recorded date of Native people becoming US citizens was in 1831, when the Mississippi Choctaw became citizens after the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek of 1830 was ratified. Under Article XIV of that treaty, any Choctaw who elected not to move to Native American territory could become an American citizen when he registered, and if he stayed on designated lands for five years after treaty ratification. In
3916-505: The United States from 1917 thru the 1920s, gathered signatures on petitions supporting Indian enfranchisement into the tens of thousands. Some of his trips into Pennsylvania were in support of Melville Clyde Kelly , a supporter of the bill in Congress, who had a district there. The petitions and other advocacy work helped pass the bill, but he was ultimately disillusioned with the results. United States Statutes at Large The United States Statutes at Large , commonly referred to as
4005-560: 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
4094-753: 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
4183-555: 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
4272-771: 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
4361-765: 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
4450-448: 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
4539-593: 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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#17327652120794628-448: 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
4717-605: The authority to publish the Statutes at Large to the Government Printing Office under the direction of the Secretary of State. Pub. L. 80–278 , 61 Stat. 633, was enacted July 30, 1947 and directed the Secretary of State to compile, edit, index, and publish the Statutes at Large . Pub. L. 81–821 , 64 Stat. 980, was enacted September 23, 1950 and directed the Administrator of General Services to compile, edit, index, and publish
4806-468: The courts as not applicable to Native peoples. The act was proposed by US Representative Homer P. Snyder (R-NY), and signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge on June 2, 1924. It was enacted partially in recognition of the thousands of Native Americans who served in the US Armed Forces during World War I . The text of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act reads as follows: Be it enacted by
4895-522: 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
4984-492: The early 20th century, Joseph K. Dixon , who had previously advocated for segregated Indian units during World War I in an effort to prevent their assimilation, wrote (referring to soldiers who served in World War I): The Indian, though a man without a country, the Indian who has suffered a thousand wrongs considered the white man's burden and from mountains, plains and divides, the Indian threw himself into
5073-409: 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
5162-513: The government had an obligation to supervise and protect Native citizens. The Indian Rights Association , a key group in the development of this legislation, advocated that federal guardianship was a necessary component of citizenship. They pushed for the clause "tribal rights and property" in the Indian Citizenship Act to preserve Indian identity but gain citizenship rights and protection. One advocate for American Indians during
5251-546: 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
5340-538: 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
5429-483: 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
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#17327652120795518-598: The limits of the United States". About 8% of the Native population at the time qualified for US citizenship because they were "taxed". Others obtained citizenship by serving in the military, marrying whites, or accepting land allotments such as those granted under the Dawes Act . The exclusion of Native Americans from US citizenship was further established by Elk v. Wilkins (1884), when the Supreme Court held that
5607-941: The meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment of the Constitution". Although the Dawes Act did not apply to citizens of the Five Civilized Tribes , the Osage , Miami , the Peoria , nor the Sac and Fox Nations of Indian Territory, the Curtis Act of 1898 extended its provisions to their citizens, requiring allotment of their lands and making their tribal members eligible to vote in local elections. A federal act (31 Stat. 1447) of March 3, 1901, granted United States citizenship to all Native people residing in Indian Territory. Subsequent passage of
5696-480: 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
5785-594: 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
5874-422: 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
5963-589: 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
6052-399: 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,
6141-643: 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
6230-403: 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
6319-406: 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
6408-482: 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
6497-456: 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,
6586-532: The statutes enacted during that session are compiled into bound books, known as "session law" publications. The United States Statutes at Large is the name of the session law publication for U.S. Federal statutes. The public laws and private laws are numbered and organized in chronological order. U.S. Federal statutes are published in a three-part process, consisting of slip laws, session laws ( Statutes at Large ), and codification ( United States Code ). Large portions of public laws are enacted as amendments to
6675-553: The struggle to help throttle the unthinkable tyranny of the Hun. The Indian helped to free Belgium , helped to free all the small nations, helped to give victory to the Stars and Stripes. The Indian went to France to help avenge the ravages of autocracy. Now, shall we not redeem ourselves by redeeming all the tribes? Nipo T. Strongheart , a performer-lecturer on Native American topics at Lyceum and Chautauqua and similar activities across
6764-552: The text of the original bill was used as a reason why some Native Americans were not granted the immediate right to vote with the bill. On May 19, 1924, Snyder said on the House floor, "The New York Indians are very much opposed to this, but I am perfectly willing to take the responsibility if the committee sees fit to agree to this." After passage of the Bill, Snyder became the representative of some of these Indians. On December 30, 1924,
6853-551: 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
6942-452: 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
7031-465: 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
7120-507: The war could become US citizens, if they applied for it. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 declared: This grant of citizenship applied to about 125,000 of the 300,000 Indigenous people in the United States, the total population of which was between 106 million and 123 million at that time. The Indigenous people not included had already become citizens by other means, such as by entering the armed forces, giving up tribal affiliations, and assimilating into mainstream American life. Citizenship
7209-500: 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
7298-496: 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
7387-399: Was allowed. Earlier views on granting Indian citizenship had suggested allocating land to individuals. Of such efforts, the Dawes Act was the most prominent. That Act allocated once-tribally-owned land to individual tribal members, and because they were landowners and eventually would pay taxes on the land and become "proficient members of society", they could be granted citizenship. This idea
7476-541: Was forcing citizenship on all Indians without their consent. According to the Iroquois, the bill disregarded previous treaties between the Indian Tribes and the United States, specifically the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix , the 1789 Treaty of Fort Harmor , and the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua in which the Iroquois were recognized as "separate and sovereign". The removal of the word "full" from " full citizenship " in
7565-583: Was granted in a piecemeal fashion before the Act, which was the first more inclusive method of granting Native American citizenship. Even Native Americans who were granted citizenship rights under the 1924 Act may not have had full citizenship and suffrage rights until 1948 because the right to vote was governed by state law. According to a survey by the Department of Interior , seven states still refused to grant Indians voting rights in 1938. Discrepancies between federal and state control provided loopholes in
7654-439: 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
7743-406: Was presented by a group of white American citizens, called "Friends of the Indian", who lobbied for the assimilation of Indigenous people into American society. They specifically hoped to do that by elevating Indigenous people to the status of US citizens. Though the Dawes Act allocated land, the notion that this should be directly tied to citizenship was abandoned in the early 20th century in favor of
7832-780: Was published as volume 68A of the Statutes at Large (68A Stat. 3 ). 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
7921-448: 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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