TAHPDX: History Topic

Image Citation: Library of Congress, Prints Division

Time Period: 19th Century

Senator Henry L. Dawes, a Republican of Massachusetts, was a leading reformer in Indian affairs.  Unlike conservatives who believed that Native Americans were an inherently inferior race destined to disappear, Dawes believed that with proper training and under the right conditions Native Americans could prosper and integrate into the nation’s mainstream.  Dawes thought that individual property ownership held the key to Indians becoming civilized.  He therefore sponsored an 1877 act that encouraged family heads to claim a quarter section (160 acres) of reservation land that they would then cultivate individually rather than collectively, as communal-minded Native Americans were prone to do.  Within a quarter century the act had served to transfer most reservation land, in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, into white hands, as people from outside the reservations purchased tracts that had not been allotted and—despite safeguards—often acquired allotted land, as well.  Most of those who kept their allotments, moreover, usually remained in poverty due to a combination of insufficient acreage, training, equipment, and interest.  The Dawes Severalty Act is a leading example of how reform can have very negative and durable unintended consequences, particularly across cultures.

This topic is scheduled for completion in 2011. Narrative and links will be posted by the end of June, 2011.