The Indian Reorganization ActĪfter a review of life on Indian reservations known as the Meriam Survey, it was clear the Dawes Act was severely detrimental to Native Americans. Now, men were forced to farm, and women took on more domestic roles. Prior to the Indian reservation system, women Indians farmed and took care of the land while men hunted and helped protect the tribe. Much of the reservation land wasn’t good farmland, and many Indians couldn’t afford the supplies needed to reap a harvest. It decreased the land owned by Indians by more than half and opened even more land to white settlers and railroads. The government hoped the legislation would help Indians assimilate into white culture easier and faster and improve their quality of life.īut the Dawes Act had a devastating impact on Native American tribes. In 1887, the Dawes Act was signed by President Grover Cleveland allowing the government to divide reservations into small plots of land for individual Indians. Even some Indians in the North were forced to relocate. Over the next few years, the Choctaw, Chicasaw and Creeks were forced to move westward on foot, often in chains and with little or no food and supplies. The Indian Removal Act was controversial, but Jackson argued it was the best option since settlers had rendered Indian lands incompatible with sustaining their way of life. The government would pick up the cost of relocating the Indians and helping them resettle. The Act allowed the government to divide land west of the Mississippi to give to Indian tribes in exchange for the land they’d lost. On May 28, 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed by President Jackson. And in December 1828, Georgia ordered the seizure of the remaining Cherokee land in their state. Over the next several years, the government passed several acts to diminish Indian autonomy, despite the Cherokee forming a new constitution-based government of their own. After suffering a devastating defeat at what became known as the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, the Creeks yielded more than 20 million acres of land to the federal government.

Indian railway reservation system