Dawes General Allotment Act

Dawes General Allotment Act

 or Dawes Severalty Act

(1887) U.S. land-distribution law proposed by Sen. Henry L. Dawes (1816–1903) of Massachusetts as a way to “civilize” and make farmers of the American Indians. Grants of 80 to 160 acres were offered to each Indian head of household, though actual ownership was withheld for 25 years to guard against sales to speculators. The unintended result was a weakened tribal structure, the inability of many nomadic Indians to adjust to an agrarian existence, and a reservation life of poverty, disease, and despondency. Under the provision that made available for public sale any “surplus” reservation land, whites had acquired two-thirds of the Indian land by 1932.