Dawes Commission facts for kids

The Dawes Commission was a special group set up by the United States government in 1893. It was named after its first leader, Henry L. Dawes. The main goal of the commission was to convince five Native American nations, known as the Five Civilized Tribes, to give up their shared land. Instead, the government wanted to divide this land into smaller, individual plots for each family, similar to what was done with other tribes under the Dawes Act of 1887.

What Was the Dawes Commission?

The Dawes Commission was created to change how Native American land was owned. Before this, many tribes owned their land together as a nation. The commission wanted to break up these large tribal lands into smaller pieces. These pieces would then be given to individual tribal members.

Why Was the Commission Formed?

In 1893, President Grover Cleveland appointed Henry L. Dawes as the chairman. Meridith H. Kidd and Archibald S. McKennon were also members. Their job was to get the Five Civilized Tribes to agree to this new way of owning land. The government believed this would help Native Americans become more like other American citizens.

How Land Ownership Changed

During this process, the Native American nations lost control of their shared lands. These lands were divided into individual lots. Each person had to claim membership in only one tribe, even if they had family from more than one. The records of who was listed became very important. These lists are known as the Dawes Rolls. Today, these rolls are still used to decide who is a member of a tribe and for land claims.

Who Was Included (or Excluded)?

The Dawes Commission had strict rules about who could be a tribal member. They mainly focused on "blood" descent, meaning how much Native American ancestry a person had. This was different from how many tribes decided membership.

The Issue of Freedmen

Many Freedmen were people who had been enslaved by Native Americans. After the American Civil War, they were freed. Peace treaties with the United States said these Freedmen should become full members of the tribes they lived with. However, the Dawes Commission often kept them off the main tribal rolls. Even if Freedmen had mixed Native American and African ancestry, they were often put on separate "Freedmen Rolls." This meant they could not identify as full tribal members.

This also affected groups like the Black Seminoles. These were people of African descent who lived alongside Native American communities in Spanish Florida. They often moved with the tribes when they were forced to leave their homes.

Challenges for Mississippi Choctaw

Under a treaty from 1831, some members of the Mississippi Choctaw tribe could choose to stay in Mississippi or Alabama instead of moving to Indian Territory. They had to register and stay on their allocated land. However, this registration process was not handled well. Later, when some of their descendants moved to Indian Territory, they struggled to be recognized as tribal members by the Dawes Commission. The Commission said it could not change the membership lists.

Ongoing Struggles for Recognition

Even today, some groups like the Creek Freedmen are still fighting for full membership in the Creek Nation. The Creek Nation often says that only people descended from a Creek Indian listed on the Dawes Rolls can be members. A similar disagreement has happened between Cherokee Freedmen and the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation voted to exclude most Freedmen unless they could prove direct descent from a Cherokee on the Dawes Roll.

What Happened to the Land?

The Dawes Commission led to Native American nations losing most of their land. After individual plots were given out, the government declared any remaining land as "surplus." This "surplus" land, which used to be Native American territory, was then sold to European-American settlers.

Land Sales and Loss

Over the next few decades, settlers also bought land directly from individual Native American families. This further reduced the total land owned by tribal members. While Native Americans received some money from these land sales, they lost most of their original territory. Since the 1930s and especially from the 1970s, tribes have worked to regain control and stop the sale of their lands. They have been trying to re-establish their own self-government.

A Historian's View

A famous book by Angie Debo, called And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes (1940), explains how the Dawes Commission's land policy was used to take land and resources from Native Americans. Historian Ellen Fitzpatrick said Debo's book showed "the corruption, moral depravity, and criminal activity" involved in how the land policy was carried out.