Native American Concentration Policy

The two main actions that the United States government issued towards the Plains Indians were the Homestead Act and the Dawes Act. The Homestead Act correlated with the trend of Manifest Destiny and encouraged settlers to migrate west. The Homestead Act encouraged western migration by providing 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were required to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land. After six months of residency, homesteaders also had the option of purchasing the land from the government for roughly $1.25 per acre. (Primary Documents in American History) The land that the government was distributing belonged to various tribes of the Plains Indians. By having the Homestead Act in effect and encouraging settlers to migrate west, Plains Indians were forced into reservations. The real impact of Manifest Destiny was that it sent many settlers west, without realizing that the settlers were taking land from the Indians. The Indians that lived in the reservations had just enough food to keep their population alive, as well as living in unsanitary conditions with bacteria and diseases everywhere. The two options that the Indians had was to either live in the reservations with little to no food or to face genocide. Some Indian tribes tried to make amends with American troops who ushered the natives to reservations, but some American troops turned on the Indians. One incident of the American troops killing Indians was the Nez Perce war. This war was over a conflict of land and how some US troops did not agree on the settlement of the land. The war resulted in over 100 casualties towards the Indians and was stated as a genocide of and Indian tribe. The second act that was passed by the United States government was the Dawes Act. The Dawes Act authorized the President to survey American

During westward expansion, the Native Americans got kicked to the side. The settlers coming west often saw the Indians as a threat to them and their families. However, this was not the main reason the Indians were pushed aside. The settlers saw the Indians had fertile land and wanted it for themselves. The Indians were the opposite of what the settlers thought they were. The Indians often helped the people moving west across the plains; giving them food, supplies, and acting as guides. However, the U.S. Government did not see this side of the Indians, instead they forced the Indians onto reservations. During the time of the expansion of the United States to the present, the Native Americans went through many things so that the United States could expand; they were pushed onto reservations, and forced to give up their culture through the Ideas of Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism.

The Dawes act reflected the interests of the Americans over the interests of the American Indians in a couple ways. The first way is that it sought to push them onto reservations. The American wanted the American Indians land but the American Indians wanted to keep all of it. The other way is that it tried to Americanize the American Indians. The Indians wanted to keep on doing their way of life how they did it hunting, gathering, and owning no personal property. However the Dawes act divided land to each individual and broke apart their traditional ways.

The appearance of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere created a major change in the Native Americans’ lives. We know this because, “As historian James Merrel has described, the invaders created a “new world” for Native Americans…” (2). We can tell that their lives had changed because before they came, they didn’t have to worry about giving their land away or other people taking it. The invasion caused the Native Americans to suffer a lot because they couldn’t live like how they did before the Europeans came. They had to try their best to

When the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) became enacted, it granted the Native American people many rights to themselves as well as their land. They were pretty much granted custody of their land (Imagine a custody battle over a child in which the land is the child and the Native peoples were the mother. The mother finally won.). Upon replacing the Dawes Act, the IRA authorizes for the Native Reservation to be given rightful

The purchase of Louisiana doubled the United States in size and was the key to the beginning of westward expansion. This expansion of the U.S. served as one of the defining topics of American history but contrarily, it nearly demolished the entire democracy. Because of Louisiana’s high birth rate and rapid immigration, the United States’ population increased from about five million to more than twenty-three million people. Such expeditious growth as well as economic depressions drove millions of Americans to the west in search of fresh territory and opportunities also known as manifest destiny. At the start of the 1830’s almost one hundred twenty-five thousand Native Americans lived on southeast acres that their ancestors had inhabited for generations. But then President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian removal act which gave the government the authority to trade native held land for land to the west that the United States had obtained with the purchase of Louisiana. By the closing of the decade, only a few Natives were left because the Federal government mandated that they abandon their homeland and go to designated Indian territory. This expedition was better known as the Trail of Tears. The purpose of these reservations was to bring the Native Americans under United States government control, eliminate conflict between the Indians and settlers, and finally to further encourage Native Americans to take on the habits of settlers. In exchange tribes usually received money but it was never a lot and the majority were spent on purchasing food and supplies from traders. But the daily living conditions of the reservations primarily had the most catastrophic results with devastating and long lasting effects. Overall, the rapid territorial expansionism resulted in relocation and brutal mistreatment of Native American occupants of territories now occupied by the United

Approved by the US Congress and President Grover Cleveland on February 8, 1887, the Dawes Act, also known as the General Allotment Act, emphasized severalty, the treatment of Native Americans as individuals rather than as members of tribes. The opening lines of the document deem the Dawes Act, “an act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on various reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the territories over the Indians, and other purposes” (Dawes Act). The Dawes Act, sponsored by Massachusetts Senator, Henry L. Dawes specifically agreed to provide: each Indian family head a 160 acre farm out of reservation lands, each new land owner who abandoned cultural practices and adopted “habits of civilized life” (the white settler’s ways) would be granted American citizenship, and finally “surplus” reservation lands would be made available to sell to the white settlers. Surprisingly, the US Congress did allow the Five Civilized Tribes to be exempt from the law due to a treaty signed in 1830. Section 8 stated that, "The provisions of this act shall not extend to the territory occupied by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Osage, Miamies and Peorias, and Sacs and Foxes, in the Indian

The goal of the Act was to make independent farmers out of the Indians by giving them land and the means for citizenship. The intention was to free them from the reservations and make them civilized American people. The Native American people had no input in this decision, and they were not even consulted. The Dawes Act declared that each head of an Indian family be allotted 160 acres of farmland and 80 acres to every unmarried adult. Rest of the the tribal land was considered surplus so the government could sell it to the settlers.

The Act focused on “civilizing power.” At this time, settlers argued that Indians had more land and that reservations were too big and being used “inefficiently.” The Act allotted Indian lands to individual Native Americans, splitting up tribes. According to the notes, “The new policy focused specifically on breaking up reservations by granting land allotment to Individual Native Americans.” Those who accepted allotments could become United States citizens.

The Indian new deal gave certain rights to native Americans.the act restored to native Americans that help restore their land.It gave Indians direct ownership of their land. They were controlled by the federal government.Villages were made but there where also problems such as tribes didn't have their own government.The Indians were also unaware of the things that were going on. The U.S. policy wanted to take away Indian reservation. The act pretty much divided their land and gave it to individual Indians. Two-third of the land where made into private ownership, when the Indians try to sell the land it wasn't worth anything. The goal was to stop Indians from getting robbed from their

For years, the Native Americans lived a very solitary life with their own unique way of living, that was until the European’s showed up with their very complex way of living. Harmony with nature was a very important aspect of Native American culture. The Native people embraced nature with no intention to modify it unlike the Europeans. They simply cared more about nature and what it had to offer. The spiritual connection between the land and these Natives were distinctive from the Europeans also due to the fact that to the settlers, land meant wealth. As a European, if you owned any land you were considered a wealthy upper class human being. As a Native, no one owned the land and anyone could benefit from the land.

In the age of Jackson, the whites force the natives to move westward to stay away from their lands, so the natives settled down in the West. Later on, as the city were crowded, plus, the gold and silver were discovered in the natives territory. The whites, again, forced the natives to stay in the reservation, the limited area that set aside. Moreover, the whites settlers and travelers had come to their lands and hunted their main food resources, the buffaloes just for fun. The natives had limited area, limited food, had no income, and again, lost their lands. They were suppressed and suffering. Some of the Indians wanted to keep their lands, and want the government to keep the promises to protect them from the whites. Those Indians started

By signing this treaty, the natives will have to move onto reserves and have a lack of self government control. Today the amount of Indian Reserves only cover 1% of Canada. This amount of land is far too limited for nearly 1 million Natives living in Canada. With that being said, the Aboriginal peoples lost all of their rights to govern themselves if losing land wasn’t enough torture. The shortness of self-government influenced the lives of many Aboriginal peoples in many ways. For example, they didn’t have the right to decide or speak for themselves when it comes to times when they hunt or fish because of government laws of protecting wildlife (Clark, Bruce, and John K. Wallace. Making Connections: Canada's Geography. Second Ed. ed. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education, 2006. 562.). As stated in “Making Connections Canada’s Geography Second Edition, Native people earn their their money by trapping muskrat and selling their skin to produce fur products, but soon after they moved to a new location they promptly realized there is a lack of water flow resulting in a limited amount of muskrats, therefore many trappers are no longer able to earn a stable amount of money, their economic base has been ruined due to the lack of resources their new living space has to offer (Clark, Bruce, and John K. Wallace. Making Connections: Canada's

The Dawes Act assigned allotments of land to individual Indians, vocational training for adults, education for Indian children through boarding schools, and established churches to watch over Indian policies. The aspects of the Dawes Act, in an attempt to solve the “Indian Problem,” led to a wide range of actions and responses of the Native Americans.

Native Americans had inherited the land now called America and eventually their lives were destroyed due to European Colonization. When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worst. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture.