The purpose of the Dawes Act was to provide land allotments to individual Indians and to extend the protection of the law of the United States to them, among other things. On the first purpose, they laid out grounds that reservation land deemed useful agriculturally to be divided into sections, and each head of the family to receive a quarter section, each single person or orphan an eighth section, and each child a sixteenth section. If there was not enough land to do this, it would be divided by availability. In section two of the act, it is described that the Indians shall make their own choice as to where there section lies, and in case of argument the section will be split and both sides allowed to look for additional land according to their allotment. Section five gives the right for the government to negotiate with an Indian tribe for purchase of any land allotted, and this purchase must be approved by Congress and only used for specific settlement ideals. Section seven details the extension of the protection by the laws to the lands and their inhabitants, and that no other law may be passed to deny them this. It also declares that any Indian born on American soil is considered an American citizen will full rights.
However, this act did not apply to the Five Civilized Tribes (Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, Chicasaw and Seminole), the Osage, the Miami, the Peoria, the Sac and Fox, or the Seneca in New York.
No comments:
Post a Comment