The U.S. Congress passed the General Allotment Act (also known as the Dawes Act) in 1887. Allotment replaced removal and relocation as the official government policy on assimilating the country’s Indian population. Under the General Allotment Act, the federal government divided reservations into parcels of land and distributed them to individuals. The government held these allotments in trust for 25 years, after which time each allottee received U.S. citizenship. The government believed that coercing Indians to forgo their traditional practice of sharing communal land for owning private property would assimilate Indians into Western society through their integration into the U.S.’s capitalist economy.
General Allotment Act Quotes in The Inconvenient Indian
The The Inconvenient Indian quotes below are all either spoken by General Allotment Act or refer to General Allotment Act. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5. We Are Sorry
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Throughout the history of Indian–White relations in North America, there have always been two impulses afoot. Extermination and assimilation.
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Chapter 6. Like Cowboys and Indians
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At the end of the twenty-five-year trust period, each allottee would own their own allotment free and clear, and Indians, who had been communal members of a tribe, would now be individual, private land owners. Reservations would disappear. Indians would disappear. The “Indian Problem” would disappear. Private ownership of land would free Indians from the tyranny of the tribe and traditional Native culture, and civilize the savage.
Chapter 9. As Long as the Grass is Green
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The issue has always been land. It will always be land, until there isn’t a square foot of land left in North America that is controlled by Native people.
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General Allotment Act Term Timeline in The Inconvenient Indian
The timeline below shows where the term General Allotment Act appears in The Inconvenient Indian. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 6. Like Cowboys and Indians
In 1887, the U.S. passed the General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Act. King frames the Dawes Act as “Washington’s new...
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The General Allotment Act broke reservations into individual parcels of land, and each head of household received an...
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While the General Allotment Act was framed as beneficial to Indians, what it mostly did was free up land...
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Allotment continued in the U.S. until 1934, when Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act. When Franklin...
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...in 1934. The act signified a positive shift in the government’s treatment of Indians, ending allotment and allowing for the land lost in the allotment process to be returned to tribes....
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Chapter 9. As Long as the Grass is Green
...by Native people.” King affirms that Painter saw the truth behind the many government-issued removals, allotments, and reservations: each was aimed at eliminating Native controlled land.
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Chapter 10. Happy Ever After
...the settlement involved Natives giving up claims to large parcels of land for smaller, guaranteed allotments. In total, the settlement awarded Alaska Natives 44 million acres and $963 million in cash—both...
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...While this type of transfer was concerningly similar to the settlements granted through the 1887 Allotment Act, ANCSA did not relieve Natives of their land as these earlier acts had. This...
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