wering expectations and extending the timeframe for acculturization of Native Americans into mainstream society. The lack of consensus of the intellectual community influenced government decision-making regarding Indian affairs: "While the existence of competing points of view prevented social scientists from advocating specific new legislation, their collective disenchantment encouraged government officials to revise their expectations for the future" (Hoxie, 1984, p. 144).
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) had assumed the role of supervising the use of Indian property: "Indians became an attachment to their lands rather than owners, and although the avowed policy was that of assimilation, the change in emphasis within the executive branch of the federal government meant that the vested interest of the Interior Department would always work to thwart whatever initiatives Congress might take in resolving the Indian problem" (p. 248). The result was that the Interior Department
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