1887-1928

Allotment & Assimilation

Image: Library of Congress

1887-1928

As the United States expanded westward, the flood of settlers and introduction of railways caused political leaders to believe that Indian reservations were too large and disproportionate to the needs of tribal nations. Popular opinion said that tribal nations should be “civilized” and their communal existence terminated through promotion of individual property rights. Toward that end, Congress passed the General Allotment Act of 1887 to divide reservation lands into 40-160 acre allotments for heads of family and individuals. Because Indigenous peoples were deemed “incompetent,” the federal government held these allotments in trust for 25 years until the Natives became more “civilized” through assimilation. “Surplus” reservation land was then sold to non-Indians. In 1906, Congress amended the 1887 Act with the Forced Fee Patenting Act (Burke Act) which enabled the Secretary of the Interior to judge an individual allottee competent, granting them U.S. citizenship and full ownership of the allotment. which opened the land for taxation. From 1887 to 1934, Indian people lost two-thirds of their post-treaty landholdings, leaving tribal nations with 48 million acres, much of it of little economic value.

1906

Incompetent Indians

Native land law is a complex web of rules and regulations, delays and deceptions, all of which makes it nearly impossible for American Indian landowners to do anything without permission from the federal government. Unbelievably, Natives who want jurisdiction over their own land are still required to declare themselves ‘incompetent’ to manage their own affairs.

READ STORY

Photo: Library of Congress

1921-1926

Oil, Money, Murder.

Throughout history, settler rampage across the American West has largely been driven by one thing – money. Or in the case of Oklahoma, oil. In a series of particularly egregious cases, a spate of violent and suspicious deaths among Osage Indians occurred in the 1920s. Although the motives were obvious, most cases were never even investigated.

READ STORY

Photo: Public domain via slcc.edu.

1923

AN ORGY OF ATROCITIES

In 1923, the Dakota-born writer-activist Zitkála-Šá traveled through Oklahoma as a research agent of the Indian Rights Association investigating abuses against the Choctaw, Creek, and other tribes. What she found was an appalling rampage of fraud, larceny, racial intimidation, and murder. Her 39-page report should be remembered as a crucial step forward in the Native American struggle.

READ STORY

1928

The Meriam Report

Native Americans have nearly always been out of sight, out of mind. When the Meriam Report was published in 1928, it shone a very bright spotlight on the dark realities facing American Indians at the time: ill health, poor education, intense poverty and the government’s unrelenting destruction of family and community. Nearly a century later, little has changed.

READ STORY

Image: Library of Congress

Search Project 1492

Allotment & Assimilation

1887-1928

Incompetent Indians

Oil, Money, Murder.

AN ORGY OF ATROCITIES

The Meriam Report

Choose another era

REMOVAL & RELOCATION

BACK TO TIMELINE

Reorganization

BACK TO TIMELINE