The Intent Of The Dawes Act Of 1887 Was To Responses

[Hortense Malovich]

In 1887, Native Americans who were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands were about to receive an opportunity to reclaim some small portion of the United States and receive US citizenship. Originally intended to provide the indigenous population with a secure future through farmland, the Act only continued to erode the well-being of native tribes. How was the intent lost in misunderstanding the people the Act was supposed to help and compromises to less benevolent interests made along the way?

The idea is to take the Indians out one by one from under the tribe, place him in a position to become an independent American citizen, then before the tribe is aware of it its existence as a tribe is gone - Henry Dawes1

Serving in the Senate from 1875 to 1893, Dawes was chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs. As settlers reached the end of westward expansion, Dawes feared that the Natives tribes who had lived in that area or resettled there would also have their land taken from them. He felt that the best recourse to prevent this was to dissolve the tribal governments, turning the indigenous population into US citizens, with their land protected as individual private property. He attempted to do this by turning the Natives into White European-style farmers.

The Dawes Act divided the land into many tribal reservations, with some exclusions. Under the Act, tribe members registered under their tribe to receive an allotment of 160 acres per family or 80 acres for a single adult who must occupy the land for 25 years. The government assigned some of the lands to institutions like schools and churches but auctioned off the "surplus" land after the allotment to land speculators. Through this process, tribes lost many land holdings and what remained was often of poor use to people.

For various reasons, forcing the indigenous populations onto small pieces of private land led to poor outcomes. The first was that the native people were often interested in hunting and not farming. The more significant reservations had worked as hunting grounds, but the smaller parcels were only sized for farming, which many were not interested in. Those who did wish to farm encountered other problems: the land was often in unsuitable desert areas, or the person did not have the money to buy the necessary supplies and equipment to cultivate the ground they had received.

Although section 8 of the Dawes Act excluded The Five Tribes of the Northeast, the Dawes Commission was created in 1893 and first led by Henry Dawes himself to convince the excluded tribes to turn their territory over to United States government and become US citizens. The tribes were initially resistant, but increased powers granted to the commission forced compliance. The commission oversaw the registration of tribal members, allotment of land, and the auction of the remaining tribal land.

In 1934, the Wheeler-Howard Act ended the Dawes Act, with the 48 million acres of tribal land remaining in trust for the tribe. To this day, the complicated legal ownership rights on tribal lands are a problem. Many descendants claim a single piece of land, making ownership difficult to sort. Checkerboarding is another issue where certain parts of land within a broader tribal holding may have outside owners, limiting what the tribe can do with the administration and use of their property.

On January 19, 1886, President Grover Cleveland signed the Presidential Succession Act. The act specified that in the absence of a President and vice president, heads of executive departments would succeed to the presidency in the order in which the departments were created, starting with the secretary of state. The Presidential Succession Act of 1886 remained in force until 1947.

Vice President Thomas Hendricks died in his Indianapolis home in November 1885. President Grover Cleveland's message to Congress on December 8 regarding the death of the new vice president called for a constitutional amendment to clarify the line of succession should both the President and vice president die or become unable to serve. While the Presidential Succession Act that was proposed and passed shortly afterward on January 15, 1886, was primarily the work of the Congress, President Cleveland supported the legislation and signed the bill into law.

In 1792, Congress had passed a law that addressed presidential succession; the law stipulated that if the President and vice president should both be unable to serve, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate would take office, followed by the Speaker of the House. The Presidential Succession Act changed the previous legislation by placing in line for the presidency, after the vice president, the heads of each executive department in the order in which the department was created. The new system provided a long list of successors, making it all but impossible for the nation to be without a chief executive.

Congress changed the law again in 1947, when it was argued that those at the top of the list for presidential succession should be elected, not appointed, officials. The order established in 1947, which remains in place today, set up the line of succession in the form of President, vice president, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and the heads of each executive department in the order of their creation beginning with the secretary of state and the secretary of the treasury.

In a message to Congress, Cleveland asserts that labor is a vital element of national prosperity and should be a concern of the federal government. He suggests the creation of a government committee to resolve disputes between labor and capital, making him the first President to do so.

Cleveland vetoes the first of several bills granting military pensions to Civil War Union veterans who had appealed to Congress after their claims were rejected by the Pensions Bureau. Hundreds of these claims are bogus.

Cleveland recommends to Congress that the nation accept France's gift of the Statue of Liberty. The gift commemorates the alliance between the two countries during the Revolutionary War. The statue will be placed on Liberty Island, adjacent to Ellis Island off the New Jersey coast. Ellis Island will serve as a welcoming center for the soaring number of immigrants to New York City.

Samuel Gompers forms the American Federation of Labor (AFL), a trade union. Gompers, the son of Jewish immigrants from London, arrives in New York City in 1863. The AFL grows for two decades; by 1904, its members comprise ten percent of all nonagricultural wageworkers. In 1912, the AFL will back presidential hopeful Woodrow Wilson in an effort to establish political coalitions.

Following complaints about railroad rates and policies, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) is created to ensure fairness in the management of interstate railroads. Eventually, the scope of the ICC will expand to include all common carriers. The commission is the nation's first independent regulatory agency. Although Cleveland approves its creation, he has reservations about the agency.

On February 8, 1887, President Grover Cleveland signed the General Allotment Act into law. The law, commonly known as the Dawes Act after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts who proposed it, divided tribal lands of Native Americans into individual allotments and encouraged the assimilation of Native Americans into American society.

In 1881, Helen Hunt Jackson published A Century of Dishonor, detailing the federal government's mistreatment of American Indians. Her work created a strong general sentiment for reform of the government's policy toward Native Americans. Senator Dawes proposed the General Allotment Act in 1886 to attempt to put an end to the abuses described in Jackson's book.

The bill gave 160 acres of land to each family, 80 acres to single adults and 40 acres to orphaned children, and prohibited recipients from selling the land for a period of 25 years. Indians who renounced their tribal holdings were made eligible for U.S. citizenship. The federal government purchased the land remaining after the allotments were made and then sold much of it to non-Indians.

President Grover Cleveland was an enthusiastic supporter of the bill, and he helped it through Congress. He was a strong believer in assimilation of Indians as a means to improve their living conditions. The bill passed in the Senate on February 25, 1886, and the House on December 16.

In general, the supporters of the Dawes Act (including Helen Hunt Jackson) genuinely believed that the act would improve the situation in which American Indians found themselves. Cleveland viewed himself as a protector of the Indians and believed that they would benefit greatly in adopting the norms of American life.

The actual effects of the act were far from beneficial for American Indians. The tradition of tribal lands was a central feature of American Indian culture. The Dawes Act dissolved tribal structure and was a general failure in its attempt to assimilate Indians. In addition to creating greater mistrust among Indians for the U.S. government, the act's provision to allow the government to sell remaining land after allotments were made significantly depleted the quantity of land American Indians held. This was, incidentally, one of the law's goals, as American settlers and rail road entrepreneurs had pressured the President to reduce the quantity of land in reservations, feeling that the federal government had provided Native Americans with more land than they needed. The Dawes Act was a disastrous policy that robbed Native Americans of much of their land and did little to improve their way of life.

Cleveland vetoes the Dependent Pension Bill, which would have given a military pension to anyone serving a minimum of ninety days in any war. He argues that the bill will only encourage fraudulent assertions.

The Tenure of Office Act of 1867 is repealed after Cleveland challenges its constitutionality. The act had required that the President gain Senate approval to remove from office any individuals who had received Senate confirmation upon appointment. Congress had passed the bill in order gain control over President Andrew Johnson.

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