The Dawes Act failed because the plots were too small for sustainable agriculture. The Native American Indians lacked tools, money, experience or expertise in farming. The farming lifestyle was a completely alien way of life.
Approved on February 8, 1887, "An Act to Provide for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty to Indians on the Various Reservations," known as the Dawes Act, emphasized severalty, the treatment of Native Americans as individuals rather than as members of tribes.
The Dawes Act of 1887 authorized the federal government to break up tribal lands by partitioning them into individual plots. ... As a result of the Dawes Act, over ninety million acres of tribal land were stripped from Native Americans and sold to non-natives.
The Dawes Act outlawed tribal ownership of land and forced 160-acre homesteads into the hands of individual Indians and their families with the promise of future citizenship. The goal was to assimilate Native Americans into white culture as quickly as possible.
The Dawes Act (sometimes called the Dawes Severalty Act or General Allotment Act), passed in 1887 under President Grover Cleveland, allowed the federal government to break up tribal lands. ... Only the Native Americans who accepted the division of tribal lands were allowed to become US citizens.
In reality, the Dawes Severalty Act proved a very effective tool for taking lands from Indians and giving it to Anglos, but the promised benefits to the Indians never materialized.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs attempted to ban the Ghost Dance, also contributing to the idea that it had ended. But in fact the Ghost Dance ceremony continued to be performed into the early 20th century and some of the songs are preserved in the traditions of Indians today.
The effects of the General Allotment Act of 1887, also known as the Dawes Act, are still apparent on reservations today. ... Portions of the reservation that were not allotted were declared "surplus land" and opened to non-Indians for homesteading. Tribes were compensated for whatever land was sold.
The railroads and speculators taking the best land and leaving little fertile land for American Indians was a negative outcome of the Dawes Severalty Act.
The Dawes Act in 1887 gave American citizenship to all Native Americans who accepted individual land grants under the provisions of statutes and treaties, and it marked another period where the government aggressively sought to allow other parties to acquire American Indian lands.
It destroyed the reservation system. Native Americans gained full citizenship- some settled to farming and were successful. Each male of the family received 160 acres of farming land or 320 of grazing land and after 25 years they have full ownership of land.
