Answer:
The Dawes Act was passed by Congress on February 8, 1887, regulating the distribution of land to Native Americans, in the Indian Territory that will become Oklahoma in 1907. It carries the name of the Massachusetts senator Henry L. Dawes, his principal initiator. The law was amended in 1891 and in 1906 by the Burke Act. It remained in use until 1934.
Explanation:
The law pursued two main objectives: Firstly, the community structure of the Indians was to be broken and the Indians thus integrated into American society. The Indians should become farmers. As such, according to official opinion, they would need far less land than they claimed for their traditional non-sedentary lifestyle as hunters and gatherers. The Indians themselves fought mostly against a life as a farmer, especially those of the northern Plains. These saw the farm work as unworthy and restrictive. Another advantage of the parcelling saw the government in the thus liberated surplus land, which they could sell at a profit to whites. Overall, the Indians lost thereby 36 million hectares of a total of 55 million hectares in 1887.
