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The Dawes Act: An Allotment Of Native Americans

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Envision a world where you are forced away from your homeland by people you don’t even know, then to be put onto a different land that you can’t even live on. Well, this was reality for the Native Americans in Western Washington. In 1887, The Dawes Act was conceived from a congressman, Henry Dawes. The Dawes Act purpose was to give each head of a Native American family an allotment of land which they would farm and learn how to live a “civilized” life on. The Dawes Act was not an honest attempt to save Native Americans because the land they were forced on was not useful, the Dawes Act was not explained to the Native Americans and it did not respect the Native American culture.
Native American tribes lived peacefully on reservations. First of all, the land given to the Native Americans was unsuitable for …show more content…
In the Dawes Allotment Act it says, “That when the lands allotted are only valuable for grazing purposes, an additional allotment of such grazing lands, in quantities as above provided, shall be made to each individual”. This states that the land given to each Native American had to be used for agricultural purposes, but the Native Americans couldn’t farm because they didn’t have proper land to farm on. If the Dawes Act was an honest attempt to save Native Americans, then the land appointed to them should’ve been able to be farmed on. Forcing land onto the Native Americans but having it unsuitable for farming defeated the purpose of trying to help them farm in the first place. Furthermore, if a young child were to take over the land given to a former head of a family then the land was unusable. In The Dawes Act (1887), “There were also problems with inheritance. Often young children inherited allotments that they could not farm

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