Dawes Severalty Act

Named after the Massachusetts senator Henry L. Dawes, who headed the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Indian Affairs, the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 was the culmination of decades of policy work designed to free up western land for white settlers and acculturate Native Americans to European American values and practices. The Dawes Severalty Act broke the land of most remaining reservations into parcels to be farmed by individual Native Americans or nuclear families. Partitioning Native American land in this manner, Congress hoped, would force Native peoples to give up communal living and to adopt European American farming practices. Eventually, policy makers reasoned, Native Americans would embrace all white American cultural norms and become integrated into U.S. society.