614. Settler Colonial Lawmaking: The Dawes Act of 1887 and Lost Tribal Lands

The federal law that allowed the U.S. government to break up tribal lands and impose a system of private property was devastating to Native American sovereignty, culture, and patrimony. The allotment of tribal reservations into plots for individual landholders facilitated dispossession and assimilation by encouraging farming, agriculture, and ownership models in keeping with Western capitalism. Not only did Native Americans experience disruptions in traditional tribal landholding, but non-Indians seized millions of acres of “surplus” land by sale or transfer — about two-thirds of tribal holdings. This is the second of two stand-alone talks on settler colonialism, a racial system that seeks to displace and destroy indigenous peoples and cultures and replace them with the colonizers as the “rightful” inhabitants.