The Dawes Act

During the “Gilded Age” period of American history, development of the Trans-Mississippi west was crucial to fulfilling the American dream of manifest destiny and creating an identity which was distinctly American. Since the west is often associated with rugged pioneers and frontiersmen, there is an overarching idea of hardy American individualism. However, although these settlers were brave and helped to make America into what it is today, they heavily relied on federal support. It would not have been possible for white Americans to settle the Trans-Mississippi west without the US government removing Native Americans from their lands and placing them on reservations, offering land grants and incentives for people to move out west, and the

Under influence of president Andrew Jackson, the congress was urged in 1830 to pass the Indian Removal Act, with the goal of relocated many Native Americans in the East territory, the west of Mississippi river.

Pratt opposed reservations because Jefferson’s treaty agreement meant the Great River would be the border between them and the whites. Indians would be isolated and not a part of the American life.

In the late nineteenth century, the railroad industry was booming. But it’s growth was followed by labor arguments, including the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. This strike was the first major rail strike, and it was disputed with enough violence to bring in various state militias. The Strike began when northern railroads cut salaries and wages because they still felt the impact of the Panic of 1873. The cuts were met with strikes and violence, but the railroads fought back with even more pay cuts, like the Pennsylvania Railroad lowering all wages by ten percent. A few months later, the same rail line decided it would double the length of all eastbound trains but kept the same amount of workers. The employees

More indians tribes were destroyed during war with the whites, and since the Native Americans did not have as much technology, food, and medicine as the whites, they lost a lot of warriors. Many Native Americans would leave their tribes in search for food only to be confronted and ambushed by white soldiers. Some Native Americans chose to surrender rather than to be moved to a different location. After the Indian and American War, the General Allotment Act was passed, also known as The Dawes Act of 1887. The Dawes Act granted Native Americans land allotments. It also took away the tribal ownership of most tribes. The act moved Indian families onto their own land, and took away Indian children away from their families and sent them to boarding

In the 1800’s , the Plains Indians moved westward to allow them to  make a better living and have a good life on the frontier because of the Homestead Act. The homestead Acts were several U.S. laws that gave the citizens ownership of land. It gave men and women 160 acres of land free of charge if you paid $10 to claim the land. If you cultivated for at least five years the settler could gain ownership of the land. The government encouraged citizens to move westward and live on the reservation of the Great Plains. The government did this to reduce the amount of land the

In order to control even more the natives, another Indian Appropriation Act was passed in 1871. It said that Indian tribes were no longer seen as an indepedent nation but that all Indians were just individuals, like everyone. But also that they were "wards" of the federal government. This obviously made the natives less powerful, because as a tribe, they were numerous so they had more power and they could have treaties with the government. But with the act, it did not work anymore. Indeed this was a way to control them even more, they took away from them some power that they had, plus putting them on reservations by force, they were truly "wards" now. As a consequence, since they were no longer tribes, it was easier for the government to take

After the civil war, government estiabled different policies. Changes occurred one by one. Between 1860-1900, government policies position the farmers and ranchers in the west not only progress on individual opportunity by giving farmers more land opportunity and educational opportunity, but also setback on individual opportunity by giving farmers poor land resource and less market securing credit.

The Dawes Act of 1887, some of the time alluded to as the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 or the General Allotment Act, was marked into law on January 8, 1887, by US President Grover Cleveland. This was approved by the president to appropriate and redistribute tribal grounds in the American West. It expressly tried to crush the social union of Indian tribes and to along these lines dispose of the rest of the remnants of Indian culture and society. Just by repudiating their own customs, it was accepted, could the Indians at any point turn out to be genuinely "American." This paper will give an overview of the act and how it impacted the Indigenous community into becoming

Native Americans who emigrated from Europe perceived the Indians as a friendly society with whom they dwelt with in harmony. While Native Americans were largely intensive agriculturalists and entrepreneurial in nature, the Indians were hunters and gatherers who earned a livelihood predominantly as nomads. By the 19th century, irrefutable territories i.e. the areas around River Mississippi were under exclusive occupation by the Indians. At the time, different Indian tribes such as the Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees had adapted a sedentary lifestyle and practiced small-scale agriculture. According to the proponents of removal, the Indians were to move westwards into forested lands in order to generate additional space for development through agricultural production (Memorial of the Cherokee Indians). The Act led to an array of legal and moral arguments for and against the need to relocate the Indians westward from the agriculturally productive lands of the Mississippi in Georgia and parts of Alabama. This paper compares and contrasts the major arguments for and against the

The Dawes Act gave American Indians survey’s to get allotments and to make them move away from their tribes. This was bad not only

From 1865 onward, Native American culture was greatly changed by the westward expansion of the united states. Government action effectively destroyed native culture. The US was not justified in its ruthless westward expansion because of the harm dealt to the native people and the change in the American economy.

What would it be like to have everything common and normal in life taken away within a moments notice? The film Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee explores this question through the historical events that took place during the Indian removal era. Furthermore, the film reveals the motives of the U.S. government through the many scenes in which they attempt to negotiate for land with the Sioux Indians. The Sioux refuse to sell their land, so the United States forces the Sioux to pay for the western expansion with life, land, and freedom.

The Dawes Act and its supporters sang a very similar tune to southerners who justified slavery as their patriarchal and christian duty. The Dawes Act allowed the President of the United States to survey the reservations Indians lived on and allot its land to heads of households, single persons over eighteen, and to orphans. This meant that the President went into reservations and redistributed the land, upsetting the system Native Americans had previously. Slave owners of the Antebellum South believed that the Black men and women needed to be enslaved, for they could not function without a patriarchal master. Westerners too saw the Native Americans as inferior, and felt that they had to help the tribal people be free of

Throughout the history of the United States, there generally have been dozens of particularly social movements, which is fairly significant. From the African American Civil Rights Movement in 1954 to the feminism movement in 1920, protests for all intents and purposes have helped these groups basically earn rights and fight injustice in a really major way. Some injustices that these groups face range from lack of voting rights to police brutality, or so they essentially thought. The indigenous people of North America aren’t actually immune to these injustices, basically contrary to popular belief. Back in the 1968, the American Indian Movement generally was formed to for all intents and purposes give natives security and peace of mind in a