Editing Dawes Act (section)

=== Land loss ===
The Dawes Act ended Native American communal holding of property (with cropland often being privately owned by families or clans<ref>[http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/property-rights-among-native-americans Terry L. Anderson, Property Rights Among Native Americans]</ref>), by which they had ensured that everyone had a home and a place in the tribe. The act "was the culmination of American attempts to destroy tribes and their governments and to open Indian lands to settlement by non-Indians and to development by railroads."<ref>Kidwell, Clara Sue. [http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AL011.html "Allotment"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100207000614/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AL011.html |date=2010-02-07 }}, ''Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.'' (retrieved 29 December 2009)</ref> Land owned by Native Americans decreased from {{convert|138|e6acre|km2}} in 1887 to {{convert|48|e6acre|km2}} in 1934.<ref name="Gunn">Gunn, Steven J. [http://www.enotes.com/major-acts-congress/indian-general-allotment-act-dawes-act/print Major Acts of Congress:Indian General Allotment Act (Dawes Act) (1887).] accessed 21 May 2011</ref>

Senator [[Henry M. Teller]] of [[Colorado]] was one of the most outspoken opponents of allotment. In 1881, he said that allotment was a policy "to despoil the Indians of their lands and to make them vagabonds on the face of the earth." Teller also said,

<blockquote>the real aim [of allotment] was to get at the Indian lands and open them up to settlement. The provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indians are but the pretext to get at his lands and occupy them. ... If this were done in the name of greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the name of humanity ... is infinitely worse.<ref>Otis, pp. 18–19</ref></blockquote>

In 1890, Dawes himself remarked about the incidence of Native Americans losing their land allotments to settlers: "I never knew a White man to get his foot on an Indian's land who ever took it off."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GyYMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1|title=Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian|publisher=The Lake Mohonk Conference|year=1890|editor-last=Barrows|editor-first=Isabel C.|pages=87}}</ref> The amount of land in native hands rapidly depleted from some {{convert|150|e6acre|km2}} to {{convert|78|e6acre|km2}} by 1900. The remainder of the land, once allotted to appointed natives, was declared surplus and sold to non-native settlers as well as railroad and other large corporations; other sections were converted into federal parks and military compounds.<ref>Churchill, Ward. ''Struggle for Land: Native North American Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide and Colonization''. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002. p. 48. Print.</ref>

Most allottees given land on the Great Plains were not successful at achieving economic viability via farming. Division of land among heirs upon the allottees' deaths quickly led to land fractionalization. Most allotment land, which could be sold after a statutory period of 25 years, was eventually sold to non-Native buyers at bargain prices. Additionally, land deemed to be surplus beyond what was needed for allotment was opened to White settlers, though the profits from the sales of these lands were often invested in programs meant to aid the Native Americans. Over the 47 years of the Act's life, Native Americans lost about {{convert|90|e6acre|km2}} of treaty land, or about two-thirds of the 1887 land base. About 90,000 Native Americans were made landless.<ref name="Case">{{cite book|author=Case DS, Voluck DA|year=2002|title=Alaska Natives and American Laws|edition=2nd|pages=104–105|location=Fairbanks, AK|publisher=University of Alaska Press|isbn=978-1-889963-08-2}}</ref>