Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
Named after the Massachusetts senator Henry L. Dawes, who headed the U.S. Senate's Committee on Indian Affairs, the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 was the culmination of decades of policy work designed to free up western land for white settlers and acculturate American Indians to American values and practices. The Dawes Severalty Act broke the land of most remaining reservations into parcels to be farmed by individual American Indians or nuclear American Indian families. Partitioning Indian land in this manner, Congress hoped, would force native peoples to give up communal living and to adopt American farming practices. Eventually, policy makers reasoned, American Indians would embrace all American cultural norms and become integrated into U.S. society.
When the Dawes Act passed in 1887, Americans' views of native peoples varied considerably. Some groups, particularly evangelicals, dedicated themselves to both the religious and the cultural conversion of American Indians....
