Grades: 9th - 12th Grade Time - Lessons Of Our Land · 9/26/2017 · This lesson aligns with Common Core standards RH2, RH3, RH4, RH7, RH9. 9-10th Grade RH2 Determine the central

The Dawes ActPublished on Lessons of Our Land (http://www.lessonsofourland.org)

Grades: 9th - 12th Grade Lesson: 3Unit: 2: American Indian land tenure historySubject: History/Social StudiesAchievement Goal: Describe the assumptions behind the implementation of the Dawes Act.Time: Multiple class periods

Lesson Description:Students analyze documents to identify the assumptions behind, justifications for, and results of theDawes Act.

Teacher Background:Although the allotment of Indian lands was institutionalized in 1887 by the Dawes Act, the affects of thispiece of legislation have created the most challenging tasks tribes and Indian communities face today.

In brief, proponents of allotment, who were mainly progressive non-Natives living in the Eastern UnitedStates, believed the individual ownership of land would make Indians a sedentary, “civilized” people,who disregarded their leaders and the cohesiveness of the tribe. The allotment advocates envisionedIndians adopting the habits, practices and interests of the new settler population.

The Allotment Act was applied to reservations by the U.S. President whenever, in his opinion, it wasadvantageous for particular Indian tribes. Members of the selected tribe or reservation were givenpermission to select pieces of land—usually around 40 to 160 acres in size—for themselves and theirchildren. If the amount of reservation land exceeded the amount needed for allotment, then the federalgovernment could negotiate to purchase the land from the tribes and then sell it to non-tribal settlers.Sixty million acres were either ceded outright or sold to non-Indian homesteaders and corporations as“surplus lands.”

The faulty assumptions behind these visions and the eagerness of non-Natives to acquire Native landrendered the allotment of Indian lands a complete disaster. In addition to the loss of 60 million acresfrom the Indian land base, allotment had a significant social impact on Indian communities. This lessonwill attempt to highlight these aspects of the Dawes Act. Students should not come away from thislesson with a superficial knowledge of historical facts about the Dawes Act, but with an understanding ofthe underlying assumptions behind its implementation and the scope and magnitude of its effects thatcontinue to haunt Indian Country today. Standards:This lesson aligns with Common Core standards RH2, RH3, RH4, RH7, RH9.

9-10th Grade

RH2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accuratesummary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.

RH3 Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events causedlater ones or simply preceded them.

RH4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabularydescribing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social science.

RH7 Integrate quantitative or technical analysis (e.g., charts, research data) with qualitative analysis inprint or digital text.

RH9 Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.

11-12th Grade Copyright © Indian Land Tenure Foundation, 2014

Page 1 of 5


RH2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accuratesummary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.

RH3 Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accordswith textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain.

RH4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including analyzing howan author uses and refines the meaning of a key term over the course of a text (e.g., how Madisondefines faction in Federalist No. 10).

RH7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media(e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.

RH9 Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherentunderstanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.

Teacher Preparation Resources:

Obtain a landownership map of an allotted reservation to illustrate “checkerboarding” tostudents. Preferably, this should be a reservation which most students live on or near. A mapwithout any specific landowner information can usually be found at the Tribal land office, realtyoffice, or GIS shop. If such a map cannot be found, there is a landownership map of RosebudReservation, South Dakota, which may be found at ILTF.org in the Introduction of the Allotmentsection. There is also a map of Fond du Lac Reservation, Minnesota.To teach students about the various forms of landownership on reservations, you may want tocreate a glossary to hand out which defines the following terms: Tribal trust land or land in-trust,individual trust land, fee simple land, restricted land, and allotments. Definitions of these termscan also be found at the Indian Land Tenure Foundations Allotment page in the Glossary section.Review and print the Dawes Act (General Allotment Act of 1887). The original act can be foundat Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties. A summary of the Act can be found on ILTF's website, under General Allotment Act. Make copies for your students to read.This lesson relies heavily on document analysis and textual interpretation. In order for thestudents to examine the underlying assumptions about the “civilizing” influence of individualland ownership, reprint the following paragraph which was written by the Commissioner ofIndian Affairs, J. Q. Smith, in his 1876 Report to the Secretary of Interior.

Allotments in Severalty

It is doubtful whether any high degree of civilization is possible without individual ownership ofland. The records of the past and the experience of the present testify that the soil should bemade secure to the individual by all the guarantees which law can devise, and that nothing lesswill induce men to put forth their best exertions. No general law exists which provides thatIndians shall select allotments in severalty, and it seems to me a matter of great moment thatprovision should be made not only permitting, but requiring, the head of each Indian family toaccept the allotment of a reasonable amount of land, to be the property of himself and his lawfulheirs, in lieu of any interest in any common tribal possession. Such allotments should beinalienable for at least twenty, perhaps fifty years, and if situated in a permanent Indianreservation, should be transferable only among Indians.

I am not unaware that this proposition will meet with strenuous opposition from the Indiansthemselves. Like the whites, they have ambitious men, who will resist to the utmost of theirpower any change tending to reduce the authority which they have acquired by personal effort

Copyright © Indian Land Tenure Foundation, 2014Page 2 of 5

http://www.iltf.org/http://mapserv.fdlrez.com/fdlgis/https://www.iltf.org/glossaryhttp://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol1/HTML_files/SES0033.htmlhttps://www.iltf.org/resources/land-tenure-history/historical-allotment-legislation/general-allotment-act


or by inheritance; but it is essential that these men and their claims should be pushed aside andthat each individual should feel that his home is his own; that he owes no allegiance to any greatman or to any faction; that he has a direct personal interest in the soil on which he lives, andthat that interest will be faithfully protected for him and for his children by the Government.

The report in its entirety can be found at California State University—San Marcos’s Native AmericanDocuments Project.

Read and review another formal U.S. Government statement on the allotment of Indian lands atPBS’s The West webpage. This text is then-President Chester Arthur’s statement on Indian policyreform. Make this statement available for students on the internet or through a handout.

Review The Nez Perce and the Dawes Act lesson plan at PBS’s website, particularlyActivity 3, question 4.Read, print, or make accessible, the first four selections from With the Nez Perce by JaneR. Gay.Review and make available the biography of the Indian agent who allotted the Nez Percereservation, Alice Fletcher.

Obtain a copy of Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations fromProphecy to the Present, 1492-2000, Peter Nabokov. From Chapter 13, select at least one of thefollowing and make accessible to students: “Hearts on the Ground,” “Life on the Checkerboard,”“Big Men’s Rules and Laws,” “The Outrage of Allotment,” and/or “Farming and Futility.”If time permits, have the students investigate further laws that made it easier for Indianallotments to become alienated to non-Natives. These Acts include the Burke Act (1906), whichwas an amendment to the Dawes Act that effectively eliminated the twenty-five year trustperiod for allotments. This act can be found online at California State University, San Marcoswebsite. Another act includes the 1910 omnibus act, which deals with a number of issues arisingfrom allotment.Read, review, and make available What were the results of allotment? by Professor E.A.Schwartz.

Student Activity:

1. Begin the lesson by presenting the landownership map showing “checkerboarding” on Indianreservations. Ask the students if they thought that all land on Indian reservations was owned bythe tribe. Review and briefly discuss the various types of landownership on Indian reservations.Briefly discuss the problems that arise from such a variety of ownership, such as jurisdictionalissues, access to natural resources and challenges to land use planning. Explain thatcheckerboarding in reservations was a direct result of the General Allotment Act of 1887, whichis also known as the Dawes Act. Summarize the key points of the allotment act or have thestudents read the Act itself or its summary.

2. Ask the students to investigate the assumptions about the importance of individual ownershipunderlying the Dawes Act by reading and thinking critically about the excerpt from the Report ofthe Commissioner of Indian Affairs (above) and President Chester Arthur’s statement on “IndianPolicy Reform.” After reading this, lead a discussion of how the assimilation of Indians into whitesociety was a justification for the Dawes Act, and how valid and viable this solution to the“Indian Problem” seems. To organize this discussion, follow Question 4 of Activity 3 in “The NezPerce and the Dawes Act” lesson plan listed in the Lesson Resources section.

3. To understand the Indian opposition to the Dawes Act, and the difficulty regarding itsimplementation, have the students read then compare and contrast the viewpoints of E. JaneGay in selections from “With the Nez Perce” and the American Indians in Chapter 13 of NativeAmerican Testimony. The biography of Fletcher, who is the Indian agent at Lapwai (whom Gayoften refers to as “Her Majesty”), gives some additional background on the reformers whosought the implementation of the Dawes Act and the resistance of Native people. This


http://public.csusm.edu/nadp/r876001.htmhttp://public.csusm.edu/nadp/r876001.htmhttp://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/seven/indpol.htmhttp://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/lesson_plans/lesson03.htmhttp://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/fletcher.htmhttp://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/d_h/fletcher.htmhttp://public.csusm.edu/nadp/a1906.htmhttp://public.csusm.edu/nadp/a1910.htmhttp://public.csusm.edu/nadp/asubject.htm


comparison should be done either through class discussion or short essay.4. If time permits, have students review further legislation that made it easier for allotments to

pass out of Indian ownership, such as the Burke Act and the 1910 Omnibus Act.5. Conclude the lesson by having students examine and discuss Professor E.A. Schwartz’s “What

were the results of allotment?” article found in the Lesson Resources section. Ask the studentswhy Historian Francis Prucha called the Dawes Act “the beginning of a new order of things?” Dothey agree with this? If the students cite reasons for its failure, have them refer back to theoriginal Act and circle the provisions that resulted in this failure and negative effect on IndianCountry.

Evaluation:

1. Check for the students understanding of the underlying assumptions behind the implementationof the Dawes Act.

2. Evaluate students’ participation in class discussion and/or his/her writing in a short essay.

Lesson Resources:

Indian Land Tenure Foundation websiteKappler’s Indian Affairs and TreatiesCalifornia State University, San Marcos, Native American Documents ProjectPBS, New Perspectives on the WestNabokov, Peter. Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations fromProphecy to the Present, 1492-2000. New York, NY: Penguin, 1992.

Source URL: http://www.lessonsofourland.org/lessons/dawes-act

Links:[1] https://www.iltf.org/[2] http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol1/HTML_files/SES0033.html[3] http://public.csusm.edu/nadp/[4] http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/[5] http://www.lessonsofourland.org/grade-level/9th-12th-grade[6] http://www.lessonsofourland.org/flag/flag/lessons/347?destination=printpdf/347&token=E9uTmJWMwfXPSzj_2-_ryNNz5RXHUNblQSH5GkGF2k8[7] http://www.lessonsofourland.org/flag/unflag/recently_viewed/347?destination=printpdf/347&token=E9uTmJWMwfXPSzj_2-_ryNNz5RXHUNblQSH5GkGF2k8[8] http://www.lessonsofourland.org/subjects/historysocial-studies[9] http://www.lessonsofourland.org/states/general[10] http://www.lessonsofourland.org/units/2-american-indian-land-tenure-history[11] http://www.lessonsofourland.org/type/map[12] http://www.iltf.org/[13] http://mapserv.fdlrez.com/fdlgis/[14] https://www.iltf.org/glossary[15] https://www.iltf.org/resources/land-tenure-history/historical-allotment-legislation/general-allotment-act[16] http://public.csusm.edu/nadp/r876001.htm[17] http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/seven/indpol.htm[18] http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/lesson_plans/lesson03.htm[19] http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/fletcher.htm[20] http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/d_h/fletcher.htm[21] http://public.csusm.edu/nadp/a1906.htm[22] http://public.csusm.edu/nadp/a1910.htm[23] http://public.csusm.edu/nadp/asubject.htm


https://www.iltf.org/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol1/HTML_files/SES0033.htmlhttp://public.csusm.edu/nadp/http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/http://www.lessonsofourland.org/lessons/dawes-act