WEBVTT - How Did the Dawes Act Steal 90 Million Acres of Land from Native Americans? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.840 Welcome to Brainstey, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:13.000 vogelbam here in the long dark history of the United 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:17.239 States government's mistreatment of Native Americans, most people are familiar 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:21.120 with the Trail of Tears, in which approximately fifteen thousand 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:25.360 Native American men, women, and children died during forced relocation 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.840 from their tribal homelands in the American Southeast to territories 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.080 west of the Mississippi. But the theft of Native American 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.320 traditional lands didn't stop with the Removal Act of eighteen 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.519 thirty that authorized the Trail of Tears. Over the next century, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.200 Congress passed a series of laws that systematically stripped Native 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:48.519 peoples of their lands, selling them to white settlers and corporations. 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.560 The DAWs Act, while not a household name, was perhaps 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:58.000 the single most devastating government policy of them all. Also 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.720 known as the General Allotment Act of eighteen teen eighty seven, 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.000 the Dots Act resulted in the loss of ninety million 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.600 acres or thirty six million hectors of native lands between 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.120 eighteen eighty seven and nineteen thirty four, the equivalent of 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:17.400 two thirds of all tribal landholdings at the time. Nineteenth century, 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:22.280 wide Americans, driven by manifest destiny and rapid industrialization, were 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:26.000 hungry for more and more land upon which to farm, ranch, 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:31.240 harvest timber, mine minerals, and build railroads. Because of earlier 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.880 relocation policies that resettled Native Americans and Western reservations, many 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.800 large tracts of attractive Western land were in the hands 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.800 of Native peoples By the eighteen eighties. Politicians and businessmen 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.080 who saw tribal land ownership as an obstacle to American 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.640 progress were constantly searching for a solution to the so 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:55.080 called Indian problem, and they found it in an unlikely source, 0:01:55.600 --> 0:02:00.760 progressive social reformers. For the art Cold this episode is 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.320 based on How Stuff Works, spoke with Mark Hirsh, a 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.560 historian at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.959 Indian in Washington, d C. He explained that many well 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:15.680 intentioned Americans were appalled at the desperate conditions on Western reservations, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:20.760 where hunting was forbidden and starvation was rampant. Backed by 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.440 early anthropologists, these social reformers believed that private land ownership 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:29.360 and cultural assimilation as farmers and ranchers were key to 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:35.680 saving Native peoples from themselves. Hirsch said, these people really 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.400 believed that they were doing a good thing for Native Americans, 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:43.760 that they were true friends of the Indian. As a result, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.480 two very different groups of land hungry capitalists and social 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.080 progressives threw their support behind the General Allotment Act of 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.160 eighteen eighty seven, called the Dawes Act for Senator Henry 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:59.160 Dawes of Massachusetts, the bill's lead proponent in Congress. This 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.400 law gave the US les president unprecedented power to break 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:06.040 up tribal lands into small parcels or allotments, some of 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.680 which would be offered to Native American families as private farmland, 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:14.919 and the rest sold to colonists and businesses. The idea 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.240 was that the native landowners would emulate their new white 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.280 neighbors and leave behind their traditional ways to become profitable 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:27.520 farmers and ranchers themselves. How Stuff Works also spoke with 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.080 Stephen Pavar, then a senior staff attorney with the American 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.720 Civil Liberty Union's Racial Justice Program who has since retired. 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.000 He said Congress thought that the best way of curing 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.480 the Indian problem forever would be for Indian people to 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.280 assimilate into white culture and Society. Congress came up with 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.200 the General Allotment Act as the vehicle to accomplish that. 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.520 Before the DAWs Act, Native American land, including reservations, was 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.080 communally owned by a tribe, and the fruits of their 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.520 labor were shared collectively by all tribal members. This is 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.920 part of a larger Native or Indian American concept of 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:11.720 not owning natural resources, but sharing collective responsibility for them. 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.880 For most other Americans, that traditional way of life was 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.799 antithetical to nineteenth century ideals of personal independence and capitalist gain. 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.839 Teddy Roosevelt favorably described the DAWs Act as quote a 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.240 mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal mass, adding 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:33.279 that the effort should be to steadily make the Indian 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:38.480 work like any other man on his own ground. Under 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.520 the DAWs Act, native lands were divided into allotments between 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.280 forty and one hundred and sixty acres in size that's 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.480 sixteen to sixty five hectors, and legally changed them from 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:53.159 community property to privately owned parcels of land. In some cases, 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.279 Native American families were given the option of choosing their allotment, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:58.880 but in most cases it was assigned to them. By 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.680 officers of the USA Apartment of the Interior. Once all 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.919 Native American families had received their allotments, there was plenty 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.880 of land left over. This surplus land, the DAWs Act said, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.400 could be sold to non native settlers and corporations, with 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.040 the proceeds held in a government account to be used 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:21.600 exclusively a quote for the education and civilization of the Indians. 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:28.239 That surplus land amounted to sixty million acres or twenty 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.200 four million hectors, nearly half of all existing Native territory 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:38.320 that was immediately ceded to the US government. The framers 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.280 of the Dawes Act added a stipulation that Native Americans 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:46.080 weren't competent to own their allotments outright. Instead, the deeds 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.080 to the land would be held in a government trust 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.080 for twenty five years, after which they would be transferred 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.960 to the native individual. No such waiting period existed for 0:05:55.120 --> 0:06:01.800 white settlers or corporations. Hirsch explained the US politicians largely 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.640 saw the DAWs Act as a win win situation in 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:09.640 which Native Americans assimilated into the broader culture and economy. Quote. Plus, 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.520 if you had enough white people moving into Indian territory, 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.440 that area could become an American territory. If the population 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.560 kept growing, you could apply for statehood, which is exactly 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:24.680 what happened. But while the DAWs Act was a clear 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:31.279 win for colonizing America, it was absolutely devastating for Native peoples. First, 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.039 Pavar said, the majority of Indians didn't want to become 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:39.000 farmers and ranchers. Plus, you needed money to buy equipment, cattle, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.160 and seeds, money that they didn't have. Here they were 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.880 with hundreds of acres of land that they couldn't even use. 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.640 In most cases, the parcels that were allotted to Native 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.680 families sat vacant until the twenty five year trust period 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.440 was over and the land could be sold. But here 0:06:56.560 --> 0:07:00.400 again was another stipulation. After the twenty five five year 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.520 trust period expired, the land was subject to state and 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:08.200 local property taxes, which most Native landowners couldn't pay, so 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:10.760 the land would be seized by the tax court and 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:16.080 sold at auction. Pavar said there were white people literally 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.440 waiting in line for the land to go into forfeiture 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.000 for failure to pay taxes. They would bid on it 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.960 and purchase it. Later, laws passed by Congress made it 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.160 even easier to sell off Native American owned allotments before 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.200 the twenty five year waiting period. The Burke Act of 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.440 nineteen oh six authorized the Secretary of the Interior to 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.720 deem a Native landowner competent to receive the deed to 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.440 his own land, at which point taxes became due. This 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.280 often happened without the native landowner's knowledge or consent, and 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.160 before he knew it, his land was in forfeiture and 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:57.160 sold to the highest bidder. Other problems arose too. For example, 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:01.400 there were the infamous Osage murders. After the Osage people 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:05.120 were forcibly relocated twice in the eighteen hundreds, they landed 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.240 in parts of modern day Oklahoma and struck it rich 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.960 when oil was discovered there in eighteen ninety seven. They 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.600 had more bargaining power than a lot of other native groups, 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.280 but the government still forced allotment on them when capitalists 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.000 couldn't buy them out. There was a string of mysterious 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.280 disappearances and murders in the nineteen twenties that ended with 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.200 white Americans holding land rights. It was the start of 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:34.640 the FBI's Murder Investigation Department, though few cases were ever solved. 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.400 An additional twenty seven million acres of Native land were 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.960 lost through these stipulations in an amendment to the DAWs Act. 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.400 So much land was lost that even the federal government 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:49.400 was concerned. In nineteen twenty eight, a damning report was 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.439 written by the Department of the Interior describing the state 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.720 of abject poverty and disease in which most Native Americans 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:59.480 were living. The authors of the report criticized the faulty 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.439 logic that handing private land to Native families would automatically 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.440 turn them into successful farmers. They also noted that many 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.240 of the families were living on lands from which quote 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.920 a trained and experienced white man could scarcely rest a 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:20.160 reasonable living. Congress repealed the DAWs Act in nineteen thirty four, 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.160 but the systematic theft of that ninety million acres of 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:31.280 Native lands had already happened. One small positive point, the 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.959 lists of Native Americans who were given allotments from the 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.240 DAWs Act, called the DAWs Roles, have become a valuable 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:43.800 genealogical tool for tracing Native ancestry. Beyond that, court cases 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.160 related to allotment and Native American land tenure are still 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:55.120 going on today. Today's episode is based on the article 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:57.920 how the DAWs Act stole ninety million acres of Native 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.040 American land on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Dave Ruse. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.600 Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.360 dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.319 podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:13.319 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.