United States Statutes at Large, 24 (1887): pp. 388–391.
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a provisional line may be run dividing said lands between them, and the amount to which each is entitled shall be equalized in the assignment of the remainder of the land to which they are entitled under this act: Pro- vided, That if any one entitled to an allotment shall fail to make a selection within four years after the President shall direct that allotments may be made on a particular reservation, the Secretary of the Interior may direct the agent of such tribe or band, if such there be, and if there be no agent, then a special agent appointed for that purpose, to make a selection for such Indian, which election shall be allotted as in cases where selections are made by the Indians, and patents shall issue in like manner. . . .
Sec. 5. That upon the approval of the allotments provided for in this act by the Secretary of the Interior, he shall cause patents to issue therefor in the name of the allottees, which patents shall be of the legal effect, and declare that the United States does and will hold the land thus allotted, for the period of twenty-five years, in trust for the sole use and benefit of the Indian to whom such allotment shall have been made, or, in case of his decease, of his heirs according to the laws of the State or Territory where such land is located, and that at the expiration of said period the United States will convey the same by patent to said Indian, or his heirs as aforesaid, in fee, dis- charged of said trust and free of all charge or incumbrance whatsoever. . . .
Sec. 6. That upon the completion of said allotments and the patenting of the lands to said allottees, each and every member of the respective bands or tribes of Indians to whom allotments have been made shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State or Territory in which they may reside; and no Territory shall pass or enforce any law denying any such Indian within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. And every Indian both within the territo- rial limits of the United States to whom allotments shall have been made under the provisions of this act, or under any law or treaty, and every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States who has vol- untarily taken up, within said limits, his residence separate and apart from any tribe of Indians therein, and has adopted the habits of civilized life, is hereby declared to be a citizen of the United States, and is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of such citizens, whether said Indian has been or not, by birth or otherwise, a member of any tribe of Indians within the territorial limits of the United States without in any manner, impairing or otherwise affecting the right of any such Indian to tribal or other property. . . .
Sec. 8. That the provision of this act shall not extend to the territory occupied by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Osage, Miamies and Peorias, and Sacs and Foxes, in the Indian Territory,
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Chapter 3 Evaluating Primary Sources58
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 added by executive order.
Native Americans and Severalty
This section contains sources that reflect Native Americans’ views. In sources 3, 4, and 5, Native Americans speak for themselves revealing their attitudes about the land and their experience with severalty and farming of reservation lands. As you examine these sources, consider what they reveal about the Dawes Act as a solution to the Indian problem.
3 Wooden Leg was a Northern Cheyenne who fought George Custer and his forces at Little Big Horn, Montana, in 1876. In the early twen- tieth century, he recounted his early life to a white physician who was
practicing among the Cheyennes. In the following passage, he recalls his father’s views about the land. What do Wooden Leg’s recollections suggest about the forces working against the reformers’ plans for the Indians?
A Cheyenne Tells His Son About the Land (ca. 1876) After we had been driven from the Black Hills and that country was given to the white people my father would not stay on any reservation. He said it was no use trying to make farms as the white people did. In the first place, that was not the Indian way of living. All of our teachings and beliefs were that land was not made to be owned in separate pieces by persons and that the plowing up and destruction of vegetation placed by the Great Medicine and the planting of other vegetation according to the ideas of men was an inter- ference with the plans of the Above. In the second place, it seemed that if the white people could take away from us the Black Hills after that country had been given to us and accepted by us as ours forever, they might take away from us any other lands we should occupy whenever they might want these other lands. In the third place, the last great treaty had allowed us to use all of the country between the Black Hills and the Bighorn river and mountains as hunting grounds so long as we did not resist the traveling of white people through it on their way to or from their lands beyond its borders. My father decided to act upon this agreement to us. He decided we should spend all of our time in the hunting region. We could do this, gaining our own living in this way, or we could be supported by rations given to us at the agency. He chose to stay away from all white people. His family all agreed with him.
Source: Thomas B. Marquis, Wooden Leg: A Warrior Who Fought Custer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965), pp. 155–156.
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4 John Stands-in-Timber was a Northern Cheyenne who related his tribe’s experience with farming in the late 1870s. What do his recol- lections reveal about the difficulties of transforming the Indian into a
yeoman farmer?
Cheyennes Try Farming (ca. 1877) The government started the Indians raising gardens as soon as they surren- dered. Some had gardens of corn and other crops. . . . They had forgotten how, though they all used to garden in the old days before they hunted buf- falo. Now they were learning about new crops as well, things they had never seen before. The Dull Knife people got to Oklahoma in 1877 about the time the watermelons ripened, and when the Southern Cheyennes gave them some they cut them up and boiled them like squash. They did not know you could eat them raw. But later when they planted their own they put sugar with the seeds. They said it would make them sweeter when they grew.
When they reached Tongue River every man was supposed to have a garden of his own. A government farmer went around to teach them. And many of them worked hard, even carrying buckets of water from the river by hand. One man, Black White Man, wanted to raise cotton. He had seen it in Oklahoma. He plowed a piece of ground and smoothed it up, and when it was ready he took his wife’s quilt and made little pieces from the inside and planted them with a garden hoe. When his wife missed the quilt, she got after him. He was afraid to tell her, but finally he said, “I got it and took out the cotton and planted it. We will have more quilts than we need, as soon as it grows.”
When they first learned to plow in Oklahoma the farmer told them to get ready and come to a certain place and he would show them. They did not understand. They thought “Get ready” meant fancy costumes and not their new pants and shirts. So everybody had feathers on their heads and neck- laces and leggings and fancy moccasins. It looked like a dance, not a farming lesson. And all the women and children went along to see them.
The farmer told one man to grab the handles while he started ahead with the team. But the plow jumped out of the ground and turned over, and the Indian fell down. But he tried again, and by the time they got back around he was doing pretty well. Then they all tried. At last they came to one man who had been watching closely. When he started off the dirt rolled right over and he went clear around that way, and the criers started announcing, “Ha-aah! See that man!” The women made war cries and everybody hol- lered just as if he had counted coup.*
*To ceremoniously recount one’s exploits in battle.
Source: John Stands-in-Timber and Margo Liberty, Cheyenne Memories (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 276–278.
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Chapter 3 Evaluating Primary Sources60
Another time when they practiced plowing down there, one man plowed up a bull snake and the next man plowed up a rattlesnake, and after that they were all afraid to go.
In Montana they began to help each other. The government issued plows to quite a few men, and in Birney the Fox Military Society used to plow together as soon as the frost was out. They would all gather at the farthest place up the river and work together until that was done, and then move to the next. They had seven or eight plows and it went faster that way. Besides, it was more fun. . . .
5 Ella C. Deloria, a Yankton Sioux, recalled the impact of the division of reservation lands into individual allotments. What does her account reveal about the Dawes Act’s impact on traditional patterns of life?
A Sioux Recalls Severalty (ca. 1900) At length there came the time when individual allotments of land were made. Families were encouraged to live out on them and start to be farmers forthwith. Equipment for this, as well as some essential furniture, was given the most docile ones by way of inducement. But again, it wasn’t easy to make the spiritual and social adjustment. The people were too used to living in large family groups, cooperatively and happily. Now, here they were in little father-mother-child units (with an occasional grandparent, to be sure), often miles from their other relatives, trying to farm an arid land—the very same land from which, later on, white farmers of Old World tradition and training could not exact even a subsistence living. Enduring frightful loneli- ness and working at unfamiliar tasks just to put himself ahead financially were outside the average Dakota’s ken. For him there were other values. The people naturally loved to foregather; and now the merest excuse for doing so became doubly precious. For any sort of gathering it was the easiest thing to abandon the small garden, leave the stock to fend for themselves, and go away for one to four weeks. On returning, they might find the place a wreck. That was too bad; but to miss getting together with other Dakotas was far worse. . . .
The man was the tragic figure. Frustrated, with his age old occupation suddenly gone, he was left in a daze, unable to overcome the strange and passively powerful inertia that stayed him from doing anything else. And so he sat by the hour, indifferent and inactive, watching—perhaps envying— his wife, as she went right on working at the same essential role of woman
Source: Ella C. Deloria, Speaking of Indians (Vermillion, S.Dak.: Dakota Press, 1979), pp. 60, 62–63.
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that had been hers since time immemorial. In such a mental state, what did he care that unsympathetic onlookers called him “lazy Indian” and accused him of driving his wife, like a slave, while “he took his ease“! As though he enjoyed it! If, as he sat there, someone had called, “Hey! There’s a herd of buffalo beyond that hill! Come quick!” he would have sprung into life in- stantly again. But, alas, no such thing would ever happen now. All he could do, or thought he could do, on his “farm” was to water the horses mechani- cally, bring in fuel and water, cut a little hay, tend a little garden. He did it listlessly, almost glad when the garden died on his hands for lack of rain. His heart was not in what he was doing anyway—until something human came up: a gathering of the people, where he could be with many relatives again; or a death, when he must go to help with the mourning; or a cow to be butchered, reminiscent of the hunt; or time to go to the agency for the biweekly issue of rations. That he must not miss. For him and his family, that was what still gave meaning to life.
6 The table on the next page relates to land holding among Indians subject to the Dawes Act in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What does it reveal about one impact of severalty on Native
Americans? Do previous sources provide any explanations for the pattern revealed in this table?
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Chapter 3 Evaluating Primary Sources62 Su