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In the nineteenth century, Native Americans were confined to reservations to open up land for white settlers.
Overview
The Indian reservation system was created to keep Native Americans off of lands that European Americans wished to settle.
The reservation system allowed indigenous people to govern themselves and to maintain some of their cultural and social traditions.
The Dawes Act of 1887 destroyed the reservation system by subdividing tribal lands into individual plots.
From removal to the reservation
From the earliest days of European colonization, bloody clashes over land and natural resources plagued relations between white settlers and Native Americans. European settlers used a variety of methods to wrest land away from indigenous people, from the negotiation of treaties to forcible removal to declarations of war.
As white settlers pushed ever further westward across the American continent, these brutal conflicts over land became more frequent and more problematic for the US government. In 1824, the Office of Indian Affairs was created in order to resolve the land issue. The position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs was established by an act of Congress in 1832, and in 1869, Ely Samuel Parker became the first Native American to be appointed to the position. The Office of Indian Affairs was renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947.
Photograph of Ely S. Parker.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 institutionalized the practice of forcing Native Americans off of their ancestral lands in order to make way for European settlement. The US government forcibly relocated the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole) to territories that would become the states of Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, in a death march that became known as the Trail of Tears.
The Indian Appropriations Act of 1851, also known as the Appropriation Bill for Indian Affairs, authorized the establishment of reservations in Oklahoma and inspired the creation of reservations in other states as well. The US federal government envisioned the reservations as a useful means of keeping Native Americans off of lands that white Americans wished to settle.
On the reservation
Many Native Americans resisted the imposition of the reservation system, sparking a series of conflicts known as the Indian Wars. Through a series of bloody massacres and victories in battle, the US Army ultimately succeeded in relocating most indigenous people onto reservations. The surrounding land and natural resources of the West were thereby opened up to white settlers.
Photograph of Shoshone people sitting outdoors and dancing.
For most Native Americans, life on the reservation was difficult. Although indigenous people were allowed to form their own tribal councils and courts, and thus retain their traditional governing structures, Native Americans on the reservations suffered from poverty, malnutrition, and low standards of living and rates of economic development.
In 1868, President Ulysses S. Grant adopted a policy aimed at assimilating Native Americans into mainstream US society. Government officials who oversaw Native American affairs were replaced with Christian clergy in order to convert indigenous people to Christianity. This policy led to violent resistance on the part of many Native Americans and was ultimately abandoned under President Rutherford B. Hayes.
The destruction and resurrection of the reservation system
In 1887, the US Congress passed the Dawes Act, which ended the reservation system by authorizing the federal confiscation and redistribution of tribal lands. The aim of the act was to destroy tribal governing councils and assimilate Native Americans into mainstream US society by replacing their communal traditions with a culture centered on the individual. To this end, tribal lands were parceled out into individual allotments, and only those Native Americans who accepted the individual plots were allowed to become US citizens.
A map of the United States. Indigenous territory is concentrated on the Western half primarily in Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and Oklahoma, as well as the New Mexico and Arizona Territories.
In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged the passage of the US Indian Reorganization Act, which instituted a “New Deal” for Native Americans, authorizing them to reorganize and form their own tribal governments. The act ended the land allotments created by Dawes Act and thereby resurrected the reservation system, which remains in place today.
What do you think?
Why was the reservation system initially implemented?
Why did the US government split up reservations into individual plots of land?
What was the impact of the Dawes Act on indigenous people?
Article written by Dr. Michelle Getchell. This article is licensed under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Notes
See Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
Donald L. Fixico, Bureau of Indian Affairs (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2012), 25.
For more, see Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988).
For more on the Indian Wars, see Peter Cozzens, The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West (New York: Knopf, 2016).
See Robert J. Miller, Reservation “Capitalism”: Economic Development in Indian Country (Lincoln, NE: Bison Books, 2013), and Klaus Frantz, Indian Reservations in the United States (Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
For more, see C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa, Crooked Paths to Allotment: The Fight over Federal Indian Policy after the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).
For more on the Dawes Act, see D.S. Otis, The Dawes Act and the Allotment of Indian Lands (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973).
See Graham D. Taylor, The New Deal and American Indian Tribalism: The Administration of the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934-45 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980).
Log in Genevieve Miskines 4 years agoPosted 4 years ago. Direct link to Genevieve Miskines's post “This article was very hel...” This article was very helpful and gave me a lot of information, but I still have one question. Why is everything in past tense? The Native Americans are still facing poverty, malnutrition, and low standards of living. Why does it say "was" or "suffered" when they are still suffering? • (31 votes) 🅻🅸🅶🅷🆃BENDER 3 years agoPosted 3 years ago. Direct link to 🅻🅸🅶🅷🆃BENDER's post “They are referring to the...” They are referring to the suffering of that time. If they used "are" and "suffering" it wouldn't be historically correct. (12 votes) Jordan.snyder.riverside 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Jordan.snyder.riverside's post “When these "Tribal Govern...” When these "Tribal Governments" were created were they their own nations or no? • (6 votes) Hunter Ward 4 years agoPosted 4 years ago. Direct link to Hunter Ward's post “According to the Supreme ...” According to the Supreme Court at the time, since the 1830s (Trail of Tears), Indian Tribes did not have sovereignty. Instead they were declared as "Domestic Dependent Nations." Unfortunately, Congress usually ignored this when negotiating treaties with Indians (2 votes) nmjorgod898 9 months agoPosted 9 months ago. Direct link to nmjorgod898's post “How did the White Settler...” How did the White Settlers try to Americanize the Native Americans • (4 votes) Amrutareddyv 6 months agoPosted 6 months ago. Direct link to Amrutareddyv's post “the Dawes act as well as ...” the Dawes act as well as President Grant's policy on converting them to Christianity (2 votes) lucianator21 8 months agoPosted 8 months ago. Direct link to lucianator21's post “i hope the indians are ab...” i hope the indians are able to go back to their settlements. • (3 votes) l.anderson 4 months agoPosted 4 months ago. Direct link to l.anderson's post “i hope so too” i hope so too (3 votes) efer2201 2 years agoPosted 2 years ago. Direct link to efer2201's post “Why is Minnesota listed a...” Why is Minnesota listed as Wisconsin on the map that's said to be of the US in 1890? Minnesota had long since been a state. • (1 vote) David Alexander 2 years agoPosted 2 years ago. Direct link to David Alexander's post “You ask "why", I respond ...” You ask "why", I respond that someone made a mistake which grievously offended the sentiments of the people of the Great State of Minnesota. That someone owes Minnesota and Minnesotans an apology, and perhaps fiscal reparations. (4 votes) Keke Romero 6 years agoPosted 6 years ago. Direct link to Keke Romero's post “Why are natives being tar...” Why are natives being targeted it doesn't make sense please explain more? • (2 votes) Faith Willis 5 years agoPosted 5 years ago. Direct link to Faith Willis's post “Natives weren't targeted,...” Natives weren't targeted, but there lands were desirable to most settlers. In this time many Americans fought for blacks rights, but didn't care about the mistreatment of the Native Americans. Sadly, it is unable to be redeemed now,because that would be problematic. (0 votes) Tovonn Smith 7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to Tovonn Smith's post “It seems like the Indians...” It seems like the Indians are being targeted again, can someone please help me understand why? • (2 votes) Jude 6 years agoPosted 6 years ago. Direct link to Jude's post “So that whites could sett...” So that whites could settle wherever they wanted (1 vote) brokin1352 3 years agoPosted 3 years ago. Direct link to brokin1352's post “what happen in the indian...” what happen in the indian removal in 1830? • (1 vote) EllieC 2 years agoPosted 2 years ago. Direct link to EllieC's post “The act was signed by Pre...” The act was signed by President Andrew Jackson which gave him the ability to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands. Many tribes went peacefully but some resisted. (0 votes) Ahmiyah Nelson 4 years agoPosted 4 years ago. Direct link to Ahmiyah Nelson's post “How did the White Settler...” How did the White Settlers try to Americanize the Native Americans? • (0 votes) David Alexander 4 years agoPosted 4 years ago. Direct link to David Alexander's post “1) White settlers, when t...” 1) White settlers, when they forgot that their religion was about relating to God, and not about "being like white people", tried to Americanie the native Americans. Being a Christian isn't necessarily against being a Native American. But when "being a Christian" is synonomous with "acting white", it's destructive of so many, many things. (5 votes) OliverL a year agoPosted a year ago. Direct link to OliverL's post “Why was the reservation s...” Why was the reservation system initially implemented? • (0 votes)Want to join the conversation?
When voluntary conversion to Christianity didn't make native americans like white people, white settlers stole children from their family homes and put them into residential schools where they were trained out of their cultural practices and into being white. When native americans still wouldn't become americanized, they were killed, or impoverished, or escorted into addictions.
To get the natives off the land
Why did the US government split up reservations into individual plots of land?
To get some natives in white culture
What was the impact of the Dawes Act on indigenous people?
It gave people land that agreed to do something.
