{"id":1508,"date":"2021-07-02T18:11:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T18:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=1508"},"modified":"2022-07-25T19:11:34","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T19:11:34","slug":"americanization-and-the-loss-of-american-indian-life-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/chapter\/americanization-and-the-loss-of-american-indian-life-and-culture\/","title":{"raw":"Americanization and the Loss of American Indian Life and Culture","rendered":"Americanization and the Loss of American Indian Life and Culture"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Explain the process of \u201cAmericanization\u201d as it applied to Native Americans in the nineteenth century<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2 data-type=\"title\">\"Americanization\"<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm45545168\">Through the years of the Indian Wars of the 1870s and early 1880s, opinion back east was mixed. General Philip Sheridan (appointed in 1867 to pacify the Plains Indians) famously said \"the only good Indian is a dead Indian\" and many agreed with him. But increasingly, several American reformers who would later form the backbone of the Progressive Era had begun to criticize the violence, arguing that the Indians should be helped through \u201cAmericanization\u201d to become assimilated into American society. Individual land ownership, Christian worship, and education for children became the cornerstones of this new, and final, assault on Native American life and culture.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2002\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"400\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/05204758\/Tom_Torlino_1882_to_18851-1000x562.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-2002\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/05204758\/Tom_Torlino_1882_to_18851-1000x562.jpg\" alt=\"Two photographs of Tom Torlino, a member of the Navajo Nation, who entered the Carlisle Indian School. In the photograph on the left, Torlina has long hair and Navajo clothing and jewelry. In the photograph on the right, his hair is cut, he has no jewelry, and wears a suit, collared shirt, and tie.\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a> <span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Figure 1<\/strong>. Tom Torlino, a member of the Navajo Nation, entered the Carlisle Indian School, a Native American boarding school founded by the United States, on October 21, 1882 and departed on August 28, 1886. Torlino\u2019s student file contained photographs from 1882 and 1885<\/span>.[\/caption]\r\n<h2 data-type=\"title\">Boarding Schools and Reeducation<\/h2>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idp3920704\">Beginning in the 1880s, clergymen, government officials, and social workers all worked to assimilate Indians into American life. The government permitted reformers to remove Indian children from their homes and place them in boarding schools, such as the Carlisle Indian School or the Hampton Institute, where they were taught to abandon their tribal traditions and embrace American modesty, sanctity, and tools of productivity through total immersion. Such schools not only acculturated Indian boys and girls, but also provided vocational training for males and domestic science classes for females. Adults were also targeted by religious reformers, specifically evangelical Protestants as well as a number of Catholics, who sought to convince Indians to abandon their language, clothing, and social customs for a more Euro-American lifestyle.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3>Proselytizing to Native Americans<\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"390\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/884\/2015\/08\/23202757\/CNX_History_17_04_American.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph shows a large, posed group of Native American children at an Indian school. The girls sit in the front in collared dresses. The boys stand at the back in button-down shirts and slacks.\" width=\"390\" height=\"226\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure 2<\/strong>. The federal government\u2019s policy towards the Indians shifted in the late 1880s from relocating them to assimilating them into the American ideal. Indians were given land in exchange for renouncing their tribe, traditional clothing, and way of life.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nMany female Christian missionaries played a central role in cultural reeducation programs that attempted to not only instill Protestant religion but also impose traditional American gender roles and family structures. They endeavored to replace Indians\u2019 tribal social units with small, patriarchal households. Women\u2019s labor became a contentious issue because few tribes divided labor according to the gender norms of middle- and upper-class Americans. Fieldwork, the traditional domain of white males, was primarily performed by Native women, who also usually controlled the products of their labor and often land that was worked, giving them status in society as laborers and food providers. For missionaries, the goal was to get Native women to leave the fields and engage in more proper \u201cwomen\u2019s work\"\u2014housework.\r\n\r\nChristian missionaries performed much as secular federal agents had. Few American agents could meet Native Americans on their own terms. Most viewed reservation Indians as lazy and thought of Native cultures as inferior to their own. The views of J. L. Broaddus, appointed to oversee several small Indian tribes on the Hoopa Valley reservation in California, are illustrative of these prejudiced views: in his annual report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1875, he wrote, \u201cThe great majority of them are idle, listless, careless, and improvident. They seem to take no thought about provision for the future, and many of them would not work at all if they were not compelled to do so. They would rather live upon the roots and acorns gathered by their women than to work for flour and beef.\u201d[footnote]Bureau of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1875), 221.[\/footnote]\r\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\r\n<h3>Link to Learning<\/h3>\r\nTake a look at the <a href=\"https:\/\/carlisleindian.dickinson.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carlisle Industrial Indian School<\/a> where Indian students were \u201ccivilized\u201d from 1879 to 1918. It is worth looking through the photographs and records of the school to see how this program obliterated Indian culture. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UGqWRyBCHhw&amp;t=289s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This Vox video also details how this happened<\/a>.\r\n\r\nCurrently, the <a href=\"https:\/\/carlisleindianschoolproject.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carlisle Indian School Project<\/a> is seeking to tell the stories of those who attended and give a voice to their legacy.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_6564\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"480\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/14025155\/675712bdc1746305262fb13ea22297c475c26600.jpeg\"><img class=\"wp-image-6564\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/14025155\/675712bdc1746305262fb13ea22297c475c26600.jpeg\" alt=\"Image of new students at Carlisle school wearing more traditional types of Native clothing.\" width=\"480\" height=\"348\" \/><\/a> <strong>Figure 3<\/strong>. Eleven Apache boys and girls pose outside the Carlisle Indian School after their arrival in 1886.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_6563\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"487\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/14025151\/bf8a9458c2ccd699ddf56105cd9a9927cde80112.jpeg\"><img class=\"wp-image-6563\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/14025151\/bf8a9458c2ccd699ddf56105cd9a9927cde80112.jpeg\" alt=\"A later photograph showing Native American children dressed in western suits and dresses with haircuts.\" width=\"487\" height=\"433\" \/><\/a> <strong>Figure 4<\/strong>. The caption above the boys and girls reads, \u201cChiricahua Apaches Four Months After Arriving at Carlisle\u201d and lists their names underneath.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\r\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\r\nhttps:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/727bcbf5-58e4-4aa8-a116-a32ca655f454\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2>The Allotment Era<\/h2>\r\nAs the rails moved into the West, and more and more Americans followed, the situation for Native groups deteriorated even further. Treaties negotiated between the United States and Native groups had typically promised that if tribes agreed to move to specific reservation lands, they would hold those lands collectively. But as American westward migration mounted and open lands closed, white settlers began to argue that Native people had more than their fair share of land, that the reservations were too big, that Native people were using the land \u201cinefficiently,\u201d and that they still preferred nomadic hunting instead of intensive farming and ranching.\r\n\r\nBy the 1880s, Americans increasingly championed legislation to allow the transfer of indigenous lands to farmers and ranchers, while many argued that allotting land to individual Native Americans, rather than to tribes, would encourage American-style agriculture and finally put Indians who had previously resisted the efforts of missionaries and federal officials on the path to \u201ccivilization.\u201d\r\n<h3>The Dawes General Allotment Act<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm44970336\">Most Indian American belief structures did not allow for the concept of individual land ownership; rather, the land was available for all to use and required responsibility from all to protect it. As a part of their plan to Americanize the tribes, reformers sought legislation to replace this concept with the popular Euro-American notion of real estate ownership and self-reliance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2005\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"450\"]<a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/05211347\/02522v-500x652.jpg\"><img class=\"wp-image-2005\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/05211347\/02522v-500x652.jpg\" alt=\"Appropriate alternative text can be found in the image captions.\" width=\"450\" height=\"587\" \/><\/a> <strong>Figure 5<\/strong>. Red Cloud and American Horse \u2013 two of the most renowned Ogala chiefs \u2013 are seen clasping hands in front of a tipi on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Both men served as delegates to Washington, D.C., after years of actively fighting the American government. John C. Grabill, \u201c\u2018Red Cloud and American Horse.\u2019 The two most noted chiefs now living,\u201d 1891. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/99613806\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Library of Congress.<\/a>[\/caption]\r\n\r\nPassed by Congress on February 8, 1887, the <strong>Dawes General Allotment Act<\/strong> splintered Native American reservations into individual family homesteads. Each head of a Native family was to be allotted 160 acres, the typical size of a claim that any settler could establish on federal lands under the provisions of the Homestead Act. Single individuals over age eighteen would receive an eighty-acre allotment, and orphaned children received forty acres. A four-year timeline was established for Indian peoples to make their allotment selections. If at the end of that time no selection had been made, the act authorized the secretary of the interior to appoint an agent to make selections for the remaining tribal members. Allegedly to protect Indians from being swindled by unscrupulous land speculators, all allotments were to be held in trust\u2014they could not be sold by allottees\u2014for twenty-five years. Lands that remained unclaimed by tribal members after allotment would revert to federal control and be sold to American settlers. Only after 25 years could a Native landowner obtain the full title and be granted the citizenship rights that land ownership entailed. It would not be until 1924 that formal citizenship was granted to all Native Americans. Under the Dawes Act, Indians were given the most arid, useless land. Further, inefficiencies and corruption in the government meant that much of the land due to be allotted to Indians was simply deemed \u201csurplus\u201d and claimed by settlers. Once all allotments were determined, the remaining tribal lands\u2014as much as eighty million acres\u2014were sold to white American settlers.[footnote]Limerick, Legacy of Conquest, 195\u2013199; White, It\u2019s Your Misfortune, 115.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nAmericans touted the Dawes Act as an uplifting humanitarian reform, but it upended Native lifestyles and left Native nations without sovereignty over their lands. The act claimed that to protect Native property rights, it was necessary to extend \u201cthe protection of the laws of the United States . . . over the Indians.\u201d Tribal governments and legal principles could be superseded, or dissolved and replaced, by U.S. laws. Under the terms of the Dawes Act, Native nations struggled to hold on to some measure of tribal sovereignty.\r\n<h3>The \"Last Arrow\" Pageant<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-idm12318000\">The final element of \u201cAmericanization\u201d was the symbolic \u201clast arrow\u201d pageant, which often coincided with the formal redistribution of tribal lands under the Dawes Act. At these events, Indians were forced to assemble in their tribal garb, carrying a bow and arrow. They would then symbolically fire their \u201clast arrow\u201d into the air, enter a tent where they would strip away their Indian clothing, dress in a White farmer\u2019s coveralls, and emerge to take a plow and an American flag to show that they had converted to a new way of life. It was a seismic shift for the Indians and one that left them bereft of their culture and history.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\r\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\r\nhttps:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/3d3c67c3-44bf-4183-b20f-69ac90f8764c\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\r\n<strong>Americanization:\u00a0<\/strong>the process by which an Indian was \u201credeemed\u201d and assimilated into the American way of life by changing his clothing to western clothing and renouncing his tribal customs in exchange for a parcel of land\r\n\r\n<strong>Dawes Act:\u00a0<\/strong>1887 act that divided Native American reservations into individual homesteads, giving each family 160 acres\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Explain the process of \u201cAmericanization\u201d as it applied to Native Americans in the nineteenth century<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<h2 data-type=\"title\">&#8220;Americanization&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p id=\"fs-idm45545168\">Through the years of the Indian Wars of the 1870s and early 1880s, opinion back east was mixed. General Philip Sheridan (appointed in 1867 to pacify the Plains Indians) famously said &#8220;the only good Indian is a dead Indian&#8221; and many agreed with him. But increasingly, several American reformers who would later form the backbone of the Progressive Era had begun to criticize the violence, arguing that the Indians should be helped through \u201cAmericanization\u201d to become assimilated into American society. Individual land ownership, Christian worship, and education for children became the cornerstones of this new, and final, assault on Native American life and culture.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2002\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/05204758\/Tom_Torlino_1882_to_18851-1000x562.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2002\" class=\"wp-image-2002\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/05204758\/Tom_Torlino_1882_to_18851-1000x562.jpg\" alt=\"Two photographs of Tom Torlino, a member of the Navajo Nation, who entered the Carlisle Indian School. In the photograph on the left, Torlina has long hair and Navajo clothing and jewelry. In the photograph on the right, his hair is cut, he has no jewelry, and wears a suit, collared shirt, and tie.\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2002\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><strong>Figure 1<\/strong>. Tom Torlino, a member of the Navajo Nation, entered the Carlisle Indian School, a Native American boarding school founded by the United States, on October 21, 1882 and departed on August 28, 1886. Torlino\u2019s student file contained photographs from 1882 and 1885<\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 data-type=\"title\">Boarding Schools and Reeducation<\/h2>\n<p id=\"fs-idp3920704\">Beginning in the 1880s, clergymen, government officials, and social workers all worked to assimilate Indians into American life. The government permitted reformers to remove Indian children from their homes and place them in boarding schools, such as the Carlisle Indian School or the Hampton Institute, where they were taught to abandon their tribal traditions and embrace American modesty, sanctity, and tools of productivity through total immersion. Such schools not only acculturated Indian boys and girls, but also provided vocational training for males and domestic science classes for females. Adults were also targeted by religious reformers, specifically evangelical Protestants as well as a number of Catholics, who sought to convince Indians to abandon their language, clothing, and social customs for a more Euro-American lifestyle.<\/p>\n<h3>Proselytizing to Native Americans<\/h3>\n<div style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images-archive-read-only\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/884\/2015\/08\/23202757\/CNX_History_17_04_American.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph shows a large, posed group of Native American children at an Indian school. The girls sit in the front in collared dresses. The boys stand at the back in button-down shirts and slacks.\" width=\"390\" height=\"226\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 2<\/strong>. The federal government\u2019s policy towards the Indians shifted in the late 1880s from relocating them to assimilating them into the American ideal. Indians were given land in exchange for renouncing their tribe, traditional clothing, and way of life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Many female Christian missionaries played a central role in cultural reeducation programs that attempted to not only instill Protestant religion but also impose traditional American gender roles and family structures. They endeavored to replace Indians\u2019 tribal social units with small, patriarchal households. Women\u2019s labor became a contentious issue because few tribes divided labor according to the gender norms of middle- and upper-class Americans. Fieldwork, the traditional domain of white males, was primarily performed by Native women, who also usually controlled the products of their labor and often land that was worked, giving them status in society as laborers and food providers. For missionaries, the goal was to get Native women to leave the fields and engage in more proper \u201cwomen\u2019s work&#8221;\u2014housework.<\/p>\n<p>Christian missionaries performed much as secular federal agents had. Few American agents could meet Native Americans on their own terms. Most viewed reservation Indians as lazy and thought of Native cultures as inferior to their own. The views of J. L. Broaddus, appointed to oversee several small Indian tribes on the Hoopa Valley reservation in California, are illustrative of these prejudiced views: in his annual report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1875, he wrote, \u201cThe great majority of them are idle, listless, careless, and improvident. They seem to take no thought about provision for the future, and many of them would not work at all if they were not compelled to do so. They would rather live upon the roots and acorns gathered by their women than to work for flour and beef.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Bureau of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1875), 221.\" id=\"return-footnote-1508-1\" href=\"#footnote-1508-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\n<h3>Link to Learning<\/h3>\n<p>Take a look at the <a href=\"https:\/\/carlisleindian.dickinson.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carlisle Industrial Indian School<\/a> where Indian students were \u201ccivilized\u201d from 1879 to 1918. It is worth looking through the photographs and records of the school to see how this program obliterated Indian culture. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UGqWRyBCHhw&amp;t=289s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This Vox video also details how this happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, the <a href=\"https:\/\/carlisleindianschoolproject.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carlisle Indian School Project<\/a> is seeking to tell the stories of those who attended and give a voice to their legacy.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6564\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/14025155\/675712bdc1746305262fb13ea22297c475c26600.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6564\" class=\"wp-image-6564\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/14025155\/675712bdc1746305262fb13ea22297c475c26600.jpeg\" alt=\"Image of new students at Carlisle school wearing more traditional types of Native clothing.\" width=\"480\" height=\"348\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-6564\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 3<\/strong>. Eleven Apache boys and girls pose outside the Carlisle Indian School after their arrival in 1886.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_6563\" style=\"width: 497px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/14025151\/bf8a9458c2ccd699ddf56105cd9a9927cde80112.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6563\" class=\"wp-image-6563\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/14025151\/bf8a9458c2ccd699ddf56105cd9a9927cde80112.jpeg\" alt=\"A later photograph showing Native American children dressed in western suits and dresses with haircuts.\" width=\"487\" height=\"433\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-6563\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 4<\/strong>. The caption above the boys and girls reads, \u201cChiricahua Apaches Four Months After Arriving at Carlisle\u201d and lists their names underneath.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\n<p>\t<iframe id=\"assessment_practice_727bcbf5-58e4-4aa8-a116-a32ca655f454\" class=\"resizable\" src=\"https:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/727bcbf5-58e4-4aa8-a116-a32ca655f454?iframe_resize_id=assessment_practice_id_727bcbf5-58e4-4aa8-a116-a32ca655f454\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:300px;\"><br \/>\n\t<\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>The Allotment Era<\/h2>\n<p>As the rails moved into the West, and more and more Americans followed, the situation for Native groups deteriorated even further. Treaties negotiated between the United States and Native groups had typically promised that if tribes agreed to move to specific reservation lands, they would hold those lands collectively. But as American westward migration mounted and open lands closed, white settlers began to argue that Native people had more than their fair share of land, that the reservations were too big, that Native people were using the land \u201cinefficiently,\u201d and that they still preferred nomadic hunting instead of intensive farming and ranching.<\/p>\n<p>By the 1880s, Americans increasingly championed legislation to allow the transfer of indigenous lands to farmers and ranchers, while many argued that allotting land to individual Native Americans, rather than to tribes, would encourage American-style agriculture and finally put Indians who had previously resisted the efforts of missionaries and federal officials on the path to \u201ccivilization.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>The Dawes General Allotment Act<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-idm44970336\">Most Indian American belief structures did not allow for the concept of individual land ownership; rather, the land was available for all to use and required responsibility from all to protect it. As a part of their plan to Americanize the tribes, reformers sought legislation to replace this concept with the popular Euro-American notion of real estate ownership and self-reliance.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2005\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/05211347\/02522v-500x652.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2005\" class=\"wp-image-2005\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5696\/2021\/07\/05211347\/02522v-500x652.jpg\" alt=\"Appropriate alternative text can be found in the image captions.\" width=\"450\" height=\"587\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2005\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 5<\/strong>. Red Cloud and American Horse \u2013 two of the most renowned Ogala chiefs \u2013 are seen clasping hands in front of a tipi on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Both men served as delegates to Washington, D.C., after years of actively fighting the American government. John C. Grabill, \u201c\u2018Red Cloud and American Horse.\u2019 The two most noted chiefs now living,\u201d 1891. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/99613806\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Library of Congress.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Passed by Congress on February 8, 1887, the <strong>Dawes General Allotment Act<\/strong> splintered Native American reservations into individual family homesteads. Each head of a Native family was to be allotted 160 acres, the typical size of a claim that any settler could establish on federal lands under the provisions of the Homestead Act. Single individuals over age eighteen would receive an eighty-acre allotment, and orphaned children received forty acres. A four-year timeline was established for Indian peoples to make their allotment selections. If at the end of that time no selection had been made, the act authorized the secretary of the interior to appoint an agent to make selections for the remaining tribal members. Allegedly to protect Indians from being swindled by unscrupulous land speculators, all allotments were to be held in trust\u2014they could not be sold by allottees\u2014for twenty-five years. Lands that remained unclaimed by tribal members after allotment would revert to federal control and be sold to American settlers. Only after 25 years could a Native landowner obtain the full title and be granted the citizenship rights that land ownership entailed. It would not be until 1924 that formal citizenship was granted to all Native Americans. Under the Dawes Act, Indians were given the most arid, useless land. Further, inefficiencies and corruption in the government meant that much of the land due to be allotted to Indians was simply deemed \u201csurplus\u201d and claimed by settlers. Once all allotments were determined, the remaining tribal lands\u2014as much as eighty million acres\u2014were sold to white American settlers.<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Limerick, Legacy of Conquest, 195\u2013199; White, It\u2019s Your Misfortune, 115.\" id=\"return-footnote-1508-2\" href=\"#footnote-1508-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Americans touted the Dawes Act as an uplifting humanitarian reform, but it upended Native lifestyles and left Native nations without sovereignty over their lands. The act claimed that to protect Native property rights, it was necessary to extend \u201cthe protection of the laws of the United States . . . over the Indians.\u201d Tribal governments and legal principles could be superseded, or dissolved and replaced, by U.S. laws. Under the terms of the Dawes Act, Native nations struggled to hold on to some measure of tribal sovereignty.<\/p>\n<h3>The &#8220;Last Arrow&#8221; Pageant<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-idm12318000\">The final element of \u201cAmericanization\u201d was the symbolic \u201clast arrow\u201d pageant, which often coincided with the formal redistribution of tribal lands under the Dawes Act. At these events, Indians were forced to assemble in their tribal garb, carrying a bow and arrow. They would then symbolically fire their \u201clast arrow\u201d into the air, enter a tent where they would strip away their Indian clothing, dress in a White farmer\u2019s coveralls, and emerge to take a plow and an American flag to show that they had converted to a new way of life. It was a seismic shift for the Indians and one that left them bereft of their culture and history.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\n<p>\t<iframe id=\"assessment_practice_3d3c67c3-44bf-4183-b20f-69ac90f8764c\" class=\"resizable\" src=\"https:\/\/assess.lumenlearning.com\/practice\/3d3c67c3-44bf-4183-b20f-69ac90f8764c?iframe_resize_id=assessment_practice_id_3d3c67c3-44bf-4183-b20f-69ac90f8764c\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:300px;\"><br \/>\n\t<\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Americanization:\u00a0<\/strong>the process by which an Indian was \u201credeemed\u201d and assimilated into the American way of life by changing his clothing to western clothing and renouncing his tribal customs in exchange for a parcel of land<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dawes Act:\u00a0<\/strong>1887 act that divided Native American reservations into individual homesteads, giving each family 160 acres<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-1508\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Original<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Modification, adaptation, and original content. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Megan Coplen for Lumen Learning. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Lumen Learning. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>US History. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: OpenStax. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/openstaxcollege.org\/textbooks\/us-history\">http:\/\/openstaxcollege.org\/textbooks\/us-history<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Access for free at https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/1-introduction<\/li><li>The West. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: The American Yawp. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/17-conquering-the-west\/#identifier_25_97\">http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/17-conquering-the-west\/#identifier_25_97<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">Public domain content<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Tom Torlino. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: J. N. Choate. Image courtesy of the Richard Henry Pratt Papers, Beinecke Rare Book &amp; Manuscript Library. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Wikimedia. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tom_Torlino_Navajo_before_and_after_circa_1882.jpg\">https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tom_Torlino_Navajo_before_and_after_circa_1882.jpg<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/about\/pdm\">Public Domain: No Known Copyright<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>Red Cloud and American Horse. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Grabill, John C. H.. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/99613806\/\">https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/99613806\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/about\/pdm\">Public Domain: No Known Copyright<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section><hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-1508-1\">Bureau of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1875), 221. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1508-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1508-2\">Limerick, Legacy of Conquest, 195\u2013199; White, It\u2019s Your Misfortune, 115. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1508-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":23592,"menu_order":14,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"US History\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"OpenStax\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/openstaxcollege.org\/textbooks\/us-history\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by\",\"license_terms\":\"Access for free at https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/us-history\/pages\/1-introduction\"},{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Modification, adaptation, and original content\",\"author\":\"Megan Coplen for Lumen Learning\",\"organization\":\"Lumen Learning\",\"url\":\"\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"The West\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"The American Yawp\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/17-conquering-the-west\/#identifier_25_97\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"pd\",\"description\":\"Tom Torlino\",\"author\":\"J. N. Choate. Image courtesy of the Richard Henry Pratt Papers, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library\",\"organization\":\"Wikimedia\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tom_Torlino_Navajo_before_and_after_circa_1882.jpg\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"pd\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"pd\",\"description\":\"Red Cloud and American Horse\",\"author\":\"Grabill, John C. H.\",\"organization\":\"\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/99613806\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"pd\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"504d05f3-6eca-41bb-9ba3-1dcae7aab16a,0a394663-056f-4a92-aa69-94da283bdf08","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-1508","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":46,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23592"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8843,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1508\/revisions\/8843"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/46"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1508\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=1508"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=1508"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-ushistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=1508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}