Pocket map of Bennett County, South Dakota, including that part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation soon to be opened for free homestead settlement, 1910.
Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA dcu
In order to understand the political and cultural relationship of Native Americans to land we must look at the long history of land sovereignty in relation to federal policies. Many have heard about US government removal policies of the 1800s and of Andrew Jackson’s notorious statement as he passed the 1830 Indian Removal Act, “What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic...?”
In high school many students likely heard about the Trail of Tears, and perhaps even of the 1887 General Allotment Act, which authorized the President (then Grover Cleveland) to survey reserved Indian land and divide the area into allotments for individuals and families. Plot sizes varied from 40 to 160 acres in size, and “excess” land, exceeding the amount needed for allotment to all tribal members, could be sold by the federal government to non-Native settlers. 60 million acres were either ceded or sold off as “surplus lands.” But those who were allotted land were not really landowners, since they were deemed “incompetent” to manage their own land. Instead this would be held in trust by the United States government. Ownership would transfer to individuals only after a 25-year period.
John Oberly, the commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1886, had written that the Indian “must be imbued with the exalting egoism of American civilization so that he will say ‘I’ instead of ‘We,’ and ‘This is mine’ instead of ‘This is ours’” (Treuer, 2019, p.144).
The result of this policy was a dramatic loss of land: from 138 million acres in 1887 to only 48 million acres when allotment ended in 1934 (Treur, 2019, p.150). One reason for this plunge is that many sold their land because they were unable to farm it in the manner intended by the US government. No training or equipment was provided, and more importantly, intensive agriculture was not the tradition amongst many Native communities. Allotment therefore contributed to a loss of previous livelihoods and means of survival.
According to Senator Henry L. Dawes, the chief architect of this new policy, the idea was for Indians to “wear civilized clothes…cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebacker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey [and] own property” (Treuer, 2019, p.113).
