The land allotment program of the Dawes Act was a total failure in terms of improving conditions for Native Americans.
The Dawes Severalty Act, also called the General Allotment Act, was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1887. The Act stipulated that Native Americans give up their tribal lands in return for individual land grants. Sponsored by Senator Henry Laurens Dawes, the Dawes Act was intended to promote the integration of the Indians into the homesteading way of life. The main effect of the Dawes Act, however, was to open up Indian territory to white settlers. As a land-rich tribe, the Sioux Nation was particularly vulnerable to changes in federal government land policy. Consequently, the Sioux lost a significant portion of their tribal lands as a result of the Dawes Act.
The Dawes Act of 1887 was the most important piece of federal legislation affecting Indians at the turn of the century; from the Indians' point of view it was disastrous. Although the explicit aim of the legislation was the redistribution of tribal lands to individuals, the implications of the policy, referred to as severalty, permeated every aspect of Native American culture. The Dawes Act fulfilled the desire of the United States government to suppress the Indian way of life and force assimilation into white culture. In the opinion of most bureaucrats: "Education in English, conversion to Christianity, and acceptance of white standards of conduct and morality would sever the Indians' ties with their 'savage heritage' and allow them to take their place in American society" (Parman, 1994, p. 3).
The Dawes Act did not succeed in encouraging Native Americans to become farmers, an experiment that had already failed with the Sioux Nation. Prior to the Dawes Act, the Sioux inhabited the region known as the Great Sioux Reservation, which included all of present-day South Dakota and hunting rights to a considerable larger territory. Whites built ...