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The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887),〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title= General Allotment Act (or Dawes Act), Act of Feb. 8, 1887 (24 Stat. 388, ch. 119, 25 USCA 331), Acts of Forty-ninth Congress-Second Session, 1887 )〕 adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship. The Dawes Act was amended in 1891, and again in 1906 by the Burke Act. The Act was named for its creator, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes of Massachusetts. The objectives of the Dawes Act were to lift the Native Americans out of poverty and to stimulate assimilation of them into mainstream American society. Individual ownership of land on the European-American model was seen as an essential step. The act also provided what the government would classify as "excess" Indian reservation lands remaining after allotments, and sell those lands on the open market, allowing purchase and settlement by non-Native Americans. The Dawes Commission, set up under an Indian Office appropriation bill in 1893, was created to try to persuade the Five Civilized Tribes to agree to allotment plans. (They had been excluded from the Dawes Act.) This commission registered the members of the Five Civilized Tribes on what became known as the Dawes Rolls. The Curtis Act of 1898 completed the process by which the federal government no longer recognized tribal governments and abolished tribal communal jurisdiction of Indian land. During the ensuing decades, many Native American tribes and individuals suffered dispossession of lands and other social ills. The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration supported passage on June 18, 1934 of the US Indian Reorganization Act (also known as the Wheeler-Howard Law). It ended allotment and created a "New Deal" for Indians, including renewing their rights to reorganize and form their own governments.〔("The Thirties in America:Indian Reorganization Act" ), Salem Press, Retrieved August 13, 2013.〕 ==The Indian Problem== During the 1850s, the United States federal government's attempt to exert control over the Native Americans expanded. Numerous new European immigrants were settling on the eastern border of the Indian territories, where most of the Native Americans tribes were situated. Conflicts between the groups increased as they competed for resources and operated according to different cultural systems. Many European Americans did not believe that members of the two racial societies could coexist within the same communities. Searching for a quick solution to their problem, William Medill the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, proposed establishing "colonies" or "reservations" that would be exclusively for the natives, similar to those which some native tribes had created for themselves in the east.〔Sandweiss, Martha A., Carol A. O’ Connor, and Clyde A. Milner II. ''The Oxford History of The American West'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. p. 174. Print.〕 It was a form of removal whereby the US government would uproot the natives from their current locations to positions to areas in the region beyond the Mississippi River; this would enable settlement by European Americans in the Southeast in turn opening up new placement for the new white settlers and at the same time protecting them from the corrupt "evil" ways of the subordinate natives.〔McDonnell, Janet. ''The Dispossession of the American Indian'', Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. p. 1〕 The new policy intended to concentrate Native Americans in areas away from encroaching settlers, but it caused considerable suffering and many deaths. During the nineteenth century, Native American tribes resisted the imposition of the reservation system and engaged with the United States Army in what were called the Indian Wars in the West for decades. Finally defeated by the US military force and continuing waves of encroaching settlers, the tribes negotiated agreements to resettle on reservations.〔Carlson, Leonard A. ''Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land'', Westport, Connecticut: 1981. p. 6. Print.〕 Native Americans ended up with a total of over of land ranging from arid deserts to prime agricultural land.〔Carlson, Leonard A. ''Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land'', p. 1.〕 The Reservation system, though forced upon Native Americans, was a system that allotted each tribe a claim to their new lands, protection over their territories, and the right to govern themselves. With the Senate supposedly being able to intervene only through the negotiation of treaties, they adjusted their ways of life and tried to continue their traditions.〔Carlson, Leonard A. ''Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land,'' p. 5.〕 The traditional tribal organization, a defining characteristic of Native Americans as a social unit, became apparent to the non-native communities of the United States and created a mixed stir of emotions. The tribe was viewed as a highly cohesive group, led by a hereditary, chosen chief, who exercised power and influence among the members of the tribe by aging traditions.〔Carlson, Leonard A. ''Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land''. Westport, Connecticut: 1981. p. 79-80〕 The tribes were seen as strong, tight-knit societies led by powerful men who were opposed to any change that weakened their positions. Many white Americans feared them and sought reformation. The Indians' failure to adopt the "Euroamerican" lifestyle, which was the social norm in the United States at the time, was seen as both unacceptable and uncivilized. By the end of the 1880s, a general consensus seem to have been reached among many US stakeholders that the assimilation of Native Americans into white American culture was top priority; it was the time for them to leave behind their tribal landholding, reservations, traditions and ultimately their Indian identities.〔Sandweiss, Martha A., Carol A. O’ Connor, and Clyde A. Milner II. ''The Oxford History of The American West''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. p. 174〕 On February 8, 1887, the Dawes Allotment Act was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland. Responsible for enacting the division of the American native reserves into plots of land for individual households, the Dawes Act was created by reformers to achieve six goals: * breaking up of tribes as a social unit, * encouraging individual initiatives, * furthering the progress of native farmers, * reducing the cost of native administration, * securing parts of the reservations as Indian land, and * opening the remainder of the land to white settlers for profit.〔Carlson, Leonard A. ''Indians, Bureaucrats, and Land'', Westport, Connecticut: 1981. p. 79〕 The compulsory Act forced natives to succumb to their inevitable fate; they would undergo severe attempts to become "Euro-Americanized" as the government allotted their reservations with or without their consent. Native Americans held very specific ideologies pertaining to their land, to them the land and earth were things to be valued and cared for, for they represented all things that produced and sustained life, it embodied their existence, identity and created an environment of belonging.〔McDonnell, Janet. ''The Dispossession of the American Indian''. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. p. 1.〕 In opposition to their white counterparts, they did not see it from an economic standpoint. But, many natives began to believe they had to adapt to the majority culture in order to survive. They would have to succumb to embrace these beliefs and surrender to the forces of progression. They were to adopt the values of the dominant society and see land as real estate to be bought and developed; they were to learn how to use their land effectively in order to become prosperous farmers.〔McDonnell, Janet. ''The Dispossession of the American Indian''. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. p. 2. Print.〕 As they were inducted as citizens of the country, they would shed their uncivilized discourses and ideologies, and exchange them for ones that allowed them to become industrious self-supporting citizens, and finally rid themselves of their "need" for government supervision.〔McDonnell, Janet. ''The Dispossession of the American Indian''. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. p. 3. Print.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dawes Act」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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