"The President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, whenever in his opinion any reservation... is advantageous for agricultural and grazing purposes, to cause said reservation... to be surveyed... and to allot the lands in said reservation in severalty to any Indian located thereon... to each head of a family, one-quarter of a section." — Dawes Severalty Act, 1887
The principal aim of the Dawes Act was to
- A
Establish self-governing reservations under Native sovereignty
- B
Fund Bureau of Indian Affairs schools through tribal land sales
- Ccheck_circle
Dissolve communal tribal landholding and assimilate Native Americans into individual farming
- D
Restore lands seized during the Indian Wars to their original tribes
Explanation
Reformers and land speculators alike supported the act, which broke reservations into individual allotments. Surplus lands were sold to non-Native settlers, transferring roughly two-thirds of remaining tribal land out of Native hands by 1934.