LAD #25: Dawes Act

The Act starts off by asserting that Indians have explicit rights to the land that has ever been explicitly deemed theirs, and gives exact guidelines for the distribution of land among individuals. If there is not enough room on a reservation to give out this much individual land, the government will make it work within the allotted reservation. Land that is not livable or farmable will be treated as such.

The Indians will make the actual selection.  If more than one works on a piece of land, they can divide it up amongst themselves. However, if this process takes more than four years, then the government will decide.

Even if an Indian is not registered, he can still buy land. The system of paying for the land will remain the same. The United States is not in any case allowed to take back land that belongs to Inidians. If an agricultural part of land is within the reservation, the Indians still must pay federal taxes on it.  After an Indian or Indian family has occupied a place for five or more years, nothing can legally take it away from them.  The US Treasury will hold the funds that have to do with Indian lands. Religion and education reformers are legally allowed to reside on Indian land. The Indians can create a police, preferably of Indian US citizens.

Now that the Indians have their own land, the government cannot interfere in their lives, force citizenship, or force them to obey state laws. However, the government is allowed to decide how agricultural and water resources within the reservations should be used.

This act does not apply to territory occupied by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Osage, Miamies and Peorias, and Sacs and Foxes, in the Indian Territory, nor to any of the reservations of the Seneca Nation of New York Indians in the State of New York, nor to that strip of territory in the State of Nebraska adjoining the Sioux Nation on the south. There will be one hundred thousand dollars in the treasury in case the Indians wish to sell land to the government.  Indians are still by all means allowed to use public transportation and do things outside of the reservations.