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Dawes General Allotment Act Of 1887

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Introduction I am currently enrolled as a member of The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and chose this essay topic to further explore my family’s background. My great-great grandma, Ora Marguerite McLellan, was born on December 27, 1904, and is listed on the Final Dawes Roll as number 554. She is listed as Choctaw by blood and was added to the Dawes Rolls as a newborn. My father, who is Native American and lives in Oklahoma, doesn’t have much knowledge or insight about our family or the trials they experienced. I felt compelled to discover more about my ancestors by completing this research paper and educating myself on Native American history. The Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 shaped the Native American way of life into what it …show more content…

Women, as well as minorities including the Indians, were considered. When Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, as well as other people, declared that the Native Americans were undeniably savages, they felt obligated to civilize them so they could receive all that this new nation had to offer. To ensure that the civility and peace remained in place between the Indians and the white Americans, the Constitution made it so that only the federal government was able to make any treaties or negotiations with Native American tribes. In favor of the Indian tribes, Congress declared that there would be no collecting or trespassing on any Indian land unless there was a war that Congress had previously approved. This excluded any war or act of violence that a settler or a group of settlers had organized themselves. When white Americans started to expand farther West, they would inevitably encounter Native American land and become increasingly aggravated and disappointed when they were unable to settle that piece of land. Because of this, the Indians became subject to significantly more lawful wars, as defined by Congress, when they continued to resist the Western expansion settlers. The Native Americans weren’t always defeated, which was frightening to some whites who realized that if the Native Americans wanted to rebel against the white American settlers, they might have the numbers to fight back, pushing settlers east, off their claimed

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