From the early 1800’s to the early 1900’s, American Indians have struggled with gaining citizenship and citizenship rights. Over many decades, many different races of people have gone through the same thing. White men, White women, American Indians, African Americans, and Immigrants, have all had to fight in some way or another to be recognized as citizens and to have the rights that come with citizenship. American Indians have been greatly affected by white people. There have been many broken promises and treaties over the course of 100 years along with citizenship rights. On May 28th, 1830, Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act. The Indian Removal Act authorized the president to trade unsettled land in the west in exchange for Indian lands that were within state borders. Very few tribes went …show more content…
citizenship to individual American Indians when they received their allotment of land. The Dawes Act was to protect the property rights of American Indians, but provisions of the law were organized in a way so that tribe members would be assimilated and integrated into American society and culture before they were allowed their full allotment of land. The Dawes Act made it so that American Indians land was put into a private trust for twenty-five years preventing the new citizens from renting, leasing, or selling their lands. Because of this, many American Indians were upset and argued that if they weren’t considered competent to manage their own land, then how could they be considered competent enough to assume the responsibility of citizenship. “There was strong opposition to combining citizenship with the land trust, for it seemed a contradiction to grant citizenship to the Indians while at the same time denying them the rights to control their land. Thus, in 1906, Congress passed the Burke Act that postponed the granting of citizenship to Indians until the end of their individual trust