The%20Dawes%20Act

1
The Dawes Act

• Transfer of Reservation Lands to Whites Through
  the Political Process
• AI_13_13

2
Demand for Indian Land

• In 1890 the total Indian population was less
  than 250,000, and the total area of reservations
  in 1887 was roughly 138 million acres (about
  two-and-one-half times the size of the state of
  Georgia).
• Although much Indian land was relatively arid, it
  seemed to land-hungry westerners that Indians had
  more land than they could ever use.
• At the same time, an active reform movement in
  the East sought to assimilate Indians into
  mainstream society by promoting agriculture.
• This influential group was made up of Protestant
  religious reformers, educators, and government
  officials.

3
Dawes Act (1887)

• Congress tried to satisfy both westerners and
  reformers by passing the General Allotment Act,
  or Dawes Act, of 1887.
• The humanitarian reformers who pushed for the
  passage of the Dawes Act believed that dividing
  reservations into privately owned farms would
  break the hold of the chiefs over individual
  Indians, encourage Indians to become farmers, and
  hasten the assimilation of Indians into white
  culture.
• The Lake Mohonk Friends of the Indian led late
  19th-century Indian reform on the ground that
  allotment would promote the Jeffersonian ideal
  among landed Indians,
• This belief was based largely on an inaccurate
  model of Indian societiescommunalthat was
  popular among social scientists in the 1880s.

4
Dawes Act

• Backers of the Allotment Act touted it as a
  necessary step for improving the welfare of
  Indians.
• As Senator Dawes himself stated, "Till this
  people will consent to give up their lands, and
  divide them among their citizens so that each can
  own the land he cultivates, they will not make
  much progress."

5
Allotments Surplus Lands

• The Dawes Act gave the president the authority to
  survey reservations when he thought it was
  appropriate.
• Individuals who refused allotments could have
  one assigned to them.
• Before 1903 a tribe had to consent to have
  surplus lands opened for settlement.
• After that date, the courts ruled that the
  federal government could sell surplus lands
  without a tribe's consent and hold the receipts
  in trust for members of the tribe.

6
(No Transcript)
7
Dawes Act Good Incentives?

• Allotted land was to be held in trust for the
  Indians for 25 years, after which it would
  convert to fee simple (homesteads became fee
  simple in 5 years)
• Allotments could be smaller if a reservation did
  not have enough land to give each family 160
  acres, and in some cases families actually got as
  little as 10 acres.
• Backers claimed that allotment would benefit
  Indians by dividing up the reservation lands into
  private ownership plots
• create all of the good incentives that private
  property rights generally create (see WSJ on
  Argentina families)
• facilitate assimilation of the Indians into
  American culture

8
Allotment 1887-1934

• After 1887 most Indian reservations were allotted
  under terms of the Dawes Act, but some tribes,
  especially in Oklahoma, received land allotted
  under special legislation.
• Reservations in desirable farming areas were
  allotted first, whereas reservations in remote
  or arid locations were sometimes never allotted.
• Thus a number of tribes in the Southwest and
  elsewhere were never allotted.
• Most reservations were allotted between 1887 and
  1910, but allotment work continued until 1934.

9
Shrinking Indian Lands

• Congress saw allotment as the key to all other
  programs, and it remained at the center of
  federal Indian policy until 1934.
• In all, over 41 million acres were allotted to
  Indians under a variety of laws and treaties.
• One consequence was that that the land base of
  Indian tribes declined from 138 million acres in
  1887 to 34,287,336 acres in 1934, including
  additions to some reservations in the Southwest.
• Moreover, another 17.8 million acres of land
  allotted to individuals was still under federal
  supervision.
• Allotments no longer supervised by the federal
  government had either been sold or the owners no
  longer had restrictions on their land.

10
Shrinking Indian Lands

• The results of this policy were far-reaching and
  catastrophic for affected tribes.
• A large number of the individual
  allotmentsthough meant to establish Indian
  family farms or ranchesdevolved to non-Indian
  individuals and off-reservation governments
  through encumbrances, tax liens, bankruptcy, and
  outright swindles.
• While the consequences of the allotment period
  vary from reservation to reservation, in
  aggregate the result was the passing of nearly
  two-thirds of Indian lands90 million of 138
  million acres

11
(No Transcript)
12
Special Interest Groups

• Given the importance that private ownership holds
  in theories of economic development, one might
  think that economists would cheer the goals of
  the Allotment Act.
• But doing so would ignore the lessons from
  public choice economics which call for closer
  scrutiny of the interest groups backing the
  legislation.
• At least two important interest groups involved
  in the allotment process must be mentioned
• Non-Indian settlers
• Office of Indian Affairs (BIA)

13
Interest Group Politics and The Allotment of
Indian Lands

• Settlers and the bureaucracy (discussed below)
  clearly benefited from the Allotment Act and the
  resulting developments.
• like the bootleggers and Baptists example
• settlers and bureaucrats were like the
  bootleggers.
• many people felt that "Americanization" was the
  best way to help Indians
• religious groups wanted to convert Indians to
  Christianity
• Friends of the Indians" (missionaries, clergy,
  east coast and especially New York journalists
  and educators, and government officials) was
  organized to pursue full citizenship rights for
  Indians

14
Friends of the Indians, and other Political
Supporters of the Act

• also advocated breaking up the reservations by
  dividing them into homesteads for the Indians,
  and a government run education system for all
  Indians in order to turn them into "good
  Americans."
• felt that the Indians had to give up their strong
  communities, seeing them as communistic, and that
  private property rights was the way to do this
• strongly supported the Dawes act even though it
  did not go as far as they wanted in some areas
• BIA also supported the act
• contended that it was the means by which they
  would ultimately allow the Indians to stand on
  their own
• Apparently wanted to put themselves out of work!
• no strong opposition to the Allotment Act

15
Bootleggers Baptists

• The law passed with little opposition, since it
  also allowed white farmers to purchase unallotted
  lands (called surplus land).
• Under the Dawes Act, reservations were to be
  divided into 160-acre farms called allotments.
• Each family's land was placed in trust for a
  25-year period to prevent Indians from being
  defrauded of their land.
• But this also meant that the land could not be
  sold or mortgaged without government permission.

16
Policy Driven by BIA

• If land-hungry settlers were the main
  beneficiaries of federal allotment policy, a
  question immediately arises why didn't the
  federal government either declare all
  reservation land surplus and open it to
  homesteading, or grant the Indians full land
  title without trusteeship so that whites could
  simply buy the Indian land and gain control more
  rapidly?
• Had the lands been given directly to Indians or
  whites, what role would have remained for the BIA
  beyond supplying Indians with agricultural
  technology and advice?
• The allotment system allowed the bureaucarcy to
  increase its administrative costs by supervising
  each allotted parcel.

17
Actual Outcome of the Dawes Act

• A very complicated and heavily supervised
  property rights allocation emerged from the
  allotment process that
• proved to be inefficient
• created a situation ripe for corruption.
• Inefficient because for most of the Indian
  Reservations, 160 acres was not enough for a
  subsistence farm
• Homesteading was used to break up federal land in
  the Midwest first, where the soil is rich and
  there is substantial precipitation, so 160 acres
  was a pretty efficient size

18
Inefficient Sizes of Allotments

• 160 acres was much too small in the more arid
  plains of the west, and the even more arid lands
  of the southwest and inter-mountain area.
• homesteaders found this out when they moved into
  the plains only to discover that they could not
  survive on the farms they got
• same was clearly true for most of the
  reservations.
• In many cases, reservations were large enough so
  that the Indians could have been given larger
  tracts (they actually were in the extremely arid
  areas where some Indian families got as much as
  400 acres

19
The Real Reason for Inefficiently Small Allotments

• Under the Dawes Act, Surplus reservation land
  not allotted, was opened to white settlers
• The Homestead Act was ultimately changed when it
  became apparent that 160 acres was too small, but
  where the reservation land was attractive to
  whites, the Indian allotments were not changed
• A primary purpose of the Allotment Act was to
  make it possible for white settlers to obtain
  reservation lands
• not interested in Indian lands in extremely arid
  areas, so those Indians were given more than 160
  acres, but this did not happen with land
  attractive to whites

20
Land Rush

• Arriving for the Land Rush Yellowstone Valley,
  Montana

21
1891 Amendment to the Dawes Act

• Allowed lease of allotted lands
• Much of the allotted land was not being shifted
  into production, probably because the parcels
  were too small to work efficiently
• Parcels of land had to be combined somehow to
  achieve the scale that was necessary.
• By leasing allotted land, a farmer could expand
  the size of an operating farm to achieve the
  efficient scale of operation.

22
1891 Amendment

• By amending the Allotment Act in 1891 to allow
  for the leasing of allotments that had not been
  released from trusteeship, Congress allowed
  whites access to the lands while preserving an
  important role for the bureaucracy.
• This gave BIA Indian agents even more power
  because it was up to them to determine and
  enforce the terms of leases.

23
Whites Gain Control of Reservation Lands too

• Lease could be to other Indians or to whites
• Whites probably had comparative advantages in
  agriculture over many Indians, at least outside
  the 5 civilized tribes and a few others that had
  substantial experience in agriculture before they
  were put on reservations
• Whites could pay more for use of the allotted
  land than it was worth to the Indians (e.g.,
  whites had access to credit markets and often
  owned other land to use as collateral)

24
Special Interest Theory The IRA (1934)

• From the special-interest theory of allotment,
  two important hypotheses follow
• 1. Allotment would occur first in those areas
  where whites placed a higher value on the land
  held by Indians.
• 2. As the allotment process transferred millions
  of acres out of the control of the BIA, the
  bureaucracy would have lost nearly all of its
  power had it not halted the process by retaining
  trust authority under the Indian Reorganization
  Act of 1934.

25
Hypothesis 1

• The model predicts that a reservation in a state
  like Arizona (less than 20 inches of rainfall)
  would be allotted 10.2 years later than a
  reservation in a state like Nebraska (more than
  20 inches of rainfall).
• The model predicts that a reservation in Michigan
  (population density more than 16) would be
  allotted 14.0 years earlier than a reservation
  in Wyoming (population density less than 16)
• These results support the theory that Indian
  policy was heavily dominated by non-Indian
  interest groups.

26
Timing of Allotments

• Allotment did not occur immediately
• required substantial bureaucratic undertaking to
  survey and allot the Indian lands
• many reservations operated under their customary
  systems of property rights well into the 1900s
• Allotment was still going on into the 1930s, and
  some reservations were never allotted at all
  because the allotment process was finally ended.
• timing of allotment was also politically driven
• reservations containing surplus lands that were
  most desirable to white settlers were allotted
  first, and those that were the least desirable
  waited.

27
Evidence of Political Influence

• Study by Carlson examines the timing of allotment
  and provides evidence that the earliest
  allotments were those in the most populated
  states where the most land had been improved for
  ag
• within those states, the reservations that got
  the most rainfall were allotted first.
• allotment was ended in 1934
• by that time the average quality of Indian land
  had clearly fallen as parts of the best land had
  been transferred to whites while the worst land
  remained in reservations
• this process also meant that the size, power and
  influence of the BIA increased dramatically since
  it was in charge of the allotment process

28
Indian Views Regarding the Dawes Act

• probably mixed
• Some were clearly going to be worse off, since,
  within many of the agricultural areas the size of
  the average farm under the Indian systems of
  customary use rights was actually larger than 160
  acres
• there were also many Indians with smaller
  holdings
• Supporters were probably rare on reservations
  where cultivation agriculture was not feasible
• Indians who were on reservations that engaged in
  open range ranching (e.g., Blackfeet) probably
  would have opposed the process if they had any
  political influence, but they did not.

29
The Allotment Process

• Once allotment began on a reservation each adult
  male was given four years to choose his land
  parcel and if he failed or refused to do so, the
  Interior Department (BIA) was to assign an
  allotment to him.
• After all eligible members of the tribe received
  their allotments, the Act stated that any
  remaining land was surplus, and therefore was to
  be opened to "secure homes for actual settlers
• government was suppose to pay the tribe for this
  surplus land and the settlers were allowed to
  take the land as homesteads

30
Changes in the Process

• Under a 1900 Amendment to the Act, Whites were
  allowed to buy the surplus and the federal
  government acted as the agent for the Indians in
  the sale
• 1906 amendment authorized granting fee simple
  title to any Indian immediately if the Indian was
  deemed to be "competent and capable of managing
  his or her own affairs."
• BIA was under considerable pressure to issue such
  titles, so the amount of fee simple land created
  on reservations increased dramatically
• One reason for this was that once land was fee
  simple, it was no longer considered to be "Indian
  Land", so whites could gain title without dealing
  with the BIA, by buying it from the Indian with
  fee simple rights

31
Allotment Surplus
32
(No Transcript)
33
Effects of the Dawes Act

• If the objective of the allotment act was to
  privatize land, then it was clearly a success.
• If the objective was to increase land ownership
  by individual Indians in order to encourage them
  to engage in ag, it was a disaster.
• as the 25 years for land being held in trust
  ended, the land became fee simple, and the
  Indians could sell it to whites, often those who
  had been leasing it.
• estimated 60 percent of the allotted lands ended
  up being transferred to whites.

34
Decline in Indian Farming

• The Dawes Act had a negative effect on Indian
  farming, as it ended their communal holding of
  property (with crop land often being privately
  owned by families or clans) by which they had
  ensured that everyone had a home and a place in
  the tribe.

35
Transfer of Indian Lands

• In 1881 there were 155,632,312 acres allocated to
  tribes and to individual Indians on reservations
• 1890 the total was down to 104,314,349
• by 1933 it reached 69,588,421
• in 1962 there were 50,557,234, less than a third
  of what it had been 80 years earlier
• Since then Indian lands have stabilized and even
  increased through purchases.
• some new reservations have been created

36
Indian Reservations, 1875
37
Indian Reservations, 1890
38
Indian Reservations, 1930
39
Wealth Transfer through The Political Process

• The Dawes Act and its amendments, let non-Indian
  interests capture wealth originally allocated to
  the Indians as reservation lands
• result reflects special interest politics
• reservations were established at precisely the
  same time that western land values for white
  settlers were rising
• Whites were excluded from access, and they had
  incentives to find a way to obtain access
• Dawes Act and its amendments did that, and the
  result was one of the largest real estate
  transfers through the political process in
  American history.

40
Political Constituencies

• Alston and Spiller found that the senators and
  congressmen on the influential committees
  responsible for these acts were self-selected
• did not represent the interest of Indians.
• Indians had no political clout
• could not vote, and they had no money to offer
• already defeated so threats of fighting and other
  sorts of disruption were not really credible
  (there were occasional small scale revolts, such
  as Wounded Knee, but the Indians simply had no
  way of influencing policy).

41
Constituencies, Continued

• The most powerful constituencies for the
  congressmen in control of Indian policy were
  those who wanted access to Indian lands.
• Even those whites who believed that they were
  advocates for the Indians, such as the Friends of
  the Indian, mistakenly believed that the
  allotment process was going to be good for
  Indians
• those who wanted to capture Indian lands through
  the political process managed to get the act
  structured in such a way that they would be able
  to do so, perhaps to the surprise of those who
  considered themselves to be advocates for Indians.

42
BIA Interests

• Unlike regulatory bureaucracies that tend to get
  captured by the Industry they regulate, the BIA
  was not captured by the Indians.
• Suppose to serve the Indians' interests, but in
  reality they permitted almost no opportunities
  for the Indians to influence bureau policy, and
  did not systematically pursue the interests of
  the Indians.
• might ask why the bureaucracy would not have
  resisted the transfer of Indian lands to whites,
  since it meant that the bureaucracys domain was
  being reduced, but in fact, the impact of
  allotment on the BIA was quite positive
• BIAs budget increased dramatically as did
  employment by the bureau.

43
BIA Interests, Continued

• If the lands had simply been given directly to
  the Indians or to the whites the role of the
  bureau would have been somewhat limited, although
  the actually allocation process would have had to
  have been supervised to make sure that it
  complied with Congressional mandates
• bureau was given the task of surveying the
  reservations, assigning parcels to individual
  Indians, and then teaching the Indians how to
  become independent farmers
• Many in the bureau and in Congress contended that
  the bureau would ultimately disappear because of
  the allotment process and the resulting self
  sufficiency of the Indians, but the opposite
  actually occurred

44
BIA, Continued

• BIA continued to grow because allotment created a
  lot of work for the bureau and justified its
  growth
• initial act required that allotted lands be held
  in trust for 25 years, so the bureau had a major
  administrative job to do.
• 1891 amendment allowed the lease of allotted
  lands, and as trustees the bureaus employees were
  responsible for determining the procedures for
  such transfers as well as the terms of leases,
  and so on.
• Not until 1906 that actual fee simple rights
  could be granted, but then the bureau had to
  determine if the Indian was "competent and
  capable of managing his or her own affairs.
• Each amendment meant more duties for the bureau.

45
BIA Continued

• Other duties increased too
• as the Indians' incentives and abilities to
  pursue economic activities such as ag declined
  with the transfer of land to whites, Indians
  actually became more and more dependent on the
  Federal government for food, clothing, housing,
  and so on
• Between the allotment process and the other
  policies of the bureau a very large population of
  dependents was created that they had to care for
  and supervise (an issue to be considered later)

46
Hypothesis 2

• Passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) in
  1934 provided the life-sustaining rationale for
  the BIA.
• The act set up a process for establishing tribal
  governments and gave the BIA authority over this
  process.
• It also ended the allotment process and froze
  most allotments for which fee patents had not
  been issued into perpetual trusteeship.

47
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and the End of
Allotment

• If allotment had continued, the reservations and
  BIA would have ultimately become irrelevant as
  land was transferred to whites
• Allotment was ended by Congress in 1934,
• preserved what was still a large system of
  reservations and a large number of dependents
• One reason the best of the Indian lands had
  already been allotted
• Another the value of land had fallen
  substantially (Great Depression), and ag prices
  had dropped dramatically, unemployment was very
  high, and few whites were interested in gaining
  access to more Indian land

48
Indian Reorganization Act, Continued

• Froze allotments for which fee simple had not
  been granted into perpetual trusteeship.
• BIA administers these trusts (discussed in detail
  later)
• Mandated that tribal governments be established
  on the reservations.
• would administer the tribal lands that remained
  unalloted, but the bureau was to be responsible
  for setting up and advising these governments.
• The major lobbying effort to end allotment came
  from the BIA which also sought a larger budget in
  order for it to accomplish its new duties, duties
  that it lobbied to get

49
Why Didnt Whites Oppose IRA?

• If, as argued above, the Allotment Act gave
  non-Indians access to Indian lands, then why did
  non-Indian citizens and their representatives not
  oppose the IRA?
• After all, the act halted the issuance of
  fee-simple title making it impossible for
  settlers to purchase land directly from Indians.
• McChesney explains that white opposition to the
  IRA did not materialize because "the value of
  Western land fell with the steep decline in
  livestock and agricultural prices in the 1920s"

50
Was Allotment a Success?

• Measured from the Indians' perspective regarding
  the millions of acres transferred to non-Indians,
  the allotment most certainly was a disaster.
• Viewed from the perspective of non-Indian
  settlers and Washington bureaucrats, allotment
  was a resounding success.
• Non-Indians ended up owning or leasing
  substantial amounts of many reservations, and the
  BIA flourished, by operating first as a real
  estate agent for Indian lands and then as the
  trustee overseeing Indian land management.

51
Allotments Legacy

• As Carlson suggests, "the general program of
  allotting land in severality was bent, pulled,
  and shaped by non-Indian economic interests,"and
  as McChesney explains, "Every change in the
  sequence of allotment events from 1887 to 1934
  led to an increase in the involvement of the
  federal government in Indian affairs and each
  change can be explained by its ability to
  generate more work for the Indian bureaucracy".

52
Other Transfers Cherokee Outlet

• Indian land did not necessarily have to be
  allotted to be transferred.
• Anderson describes the political process leading
  to the opening of the Cherokee Outlet for
  instance.
• Provides another indication that the special
  interest theory of government explains Indian
  policy pretty well, and that for much of its
  history, the Indians themselves had virtually no
  influence over that policy
• Under allotment those who did obtain fee simple
  land were able to sell it and get something for
  it
• Indians got very little from surplus lands
  homesteaded or sold by the government for the
  tribes (BIA trust management is discussed later),
  or for land that was simply taken (e.g., Cherokee
  Outlet)

53
Cherokee Outlet

• It was a 60 mile wide strip of land south of the
  Oklahoma-Kansas border between the 96th and
  100th meridians.
• It was about 225 miles long and in 1891 contained
  8,144,682.91 acres (1836).
• The US negotiated a new treaty (due to Cherokee
  Nations alliance with the Confederacy) in 1866.
• Allowed the government to dispose of the land in
  the Cherokee Outlet The United States may
  settle friendly Indians in any part of the
  Cherokee country west of 96 sale proceeds to
  be paid for to the Cherokee Nation.

54
Cherokee Strip Livestock Association

• The CSLA offered 30 million for the outright
  purchase of the outlet, but the Cherokees refused
  (1889).
• Later the government
• paid 8.6 million for
• the Outlet (1991).

55
Reductions in the Hidatsa Lands
56
Hidatsa Reservation Today
57
Ute Territory Before Reservations Were Created
58
Ute Reservation, 1868
59
Ute Reservation, 1873
60
Current Ute Reservations
61
Indians Subject to Congressional and BIA
Supervision

• The result of Indian policy as it developed
  through the last couple of decades of the 19th
  century and the first 3 or 4 decades of the 20th
  century, was not the establishment of
  self-reliant and self-determined Indians, as so
  many advocates claimed it would be.
• Instead, reservation Indians found themselves
  becoming increasingly dependent wards of the
  state entangled in what Anderson describes as a
  bureaucratic quagmire

62
Apache Receiving Cloth Commodities
63
Apache Women Receiving Commodities
64
Geronimo and Family, Fort Sill, OK, Pumpkin Patch
65
Indian Claims Commission

• In 1946, the federal government established the
  Indian Claims Commission as an official venue for
  certain tribes to seek monetary settlements for
  land loss and other wrongs dating back to
  original treaty violations.
• Over 370 claims were filed by eligible tribes
  over the 32 years of the commission's existence,
  mostly concerning land.
• By accepting the government's monetary offer, the
  aggrieved tribe abdicated any right to raise
  their claim again in the future, and on occasion
  gave up their federal status as a tribe after
  accepting compensation.

66
Awards

• Awarding money based upon a net acreage figure of
  lost lands times the monetary market value of an
  acre at the time of taking.
• In a few instances, by way of settlement acts,
  tribes gained some monetary funds to buy acreage
  (as with the Penobscot and Passamoddy of Maine
  and the Catawba of the Carolinas).
• Special acts on occasion did restore some acreage
  as with the Havasupai at the Grand Canyon.
• Some significant monetary awards were made, but
  Native nations soon learned that filing a claim
  did not guarantee compensation and that the
  federal policy did not actually support the
  reinstatement of lost land to Native title.

67
Termination

• In the 1950s, the federal policy of tribal
  termination presented a further threat to the
  lands of Native nations as the federal government
  attempted to eliminate its trustee role.
• House Concurrent Resolution 108 of 1953
  identified tribes deemed immediately capable of
  doing without federal services.
• These included the Klamath, Menominee, and those
  within certain states such as California, Texas,
  Florida, and New York.
• Legislation over the next two decades terminated
  many of these tribes as federally recognized
  sovereigns, removing tribal land protections and
  dividing parcels among tribal members.
• Much of such land ended up in non-Indian
  possession.
• Over 1 million acres of tribal land were lost due
  to termination.

68
Passamaquoddy Tribe

• During the civil rights era, the drive for
  self-determination renewed Native efforts to
  regain control of historic tribal lands.
• In 1972, the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the
  Penobscot Indian Nation sued for 25 billion and
  12.5 million acres in Maine and won a landmark
  ruling from the U.S. District Court.
• An ensuing monetary settlement was reached in
  1980 with the U.S. government. The settlement
  resulted in no direct return of land but provided
  monetary compensation of 81.5 million. More than
  54 million of this was set aside as a fund for
  land acquisition.

69
Indian Lands Today

• The long, chaotic history of settlement, federal
  policy, court cases, and legislation relating to
  Indian lands has created an exceptionally
  complicated property rights legacy.
• Each Native nation has a unique land situation
  based on the particular circumstances of its
  past.
• Some reservations were heavily allotted, others
  not at all.
• Some tribal governments have jurisdiction over
  large and contiguous tracts of land, others
  contend with reservations heavily divided between
  Indian and non-Indian interests, and still others
  have no specific land base.