Dawes Act
The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887; named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts) authorized the President of the United States to subdivide Native American tribal landholdings into allotments for Native American heads of families and individuals, transferring traditional systems of land tenure into government-imposed systems of private property by forcing Native Americans to "assume a capitalist and proprietary relationship with property" that did not previously exist. The act also opened remaining Native land for appropriation by white settlers. Before private property could be dispensed, the government now had to determine "which Indians were eligible" for allotments, which propelled an "official search for a federal definition of Indian-ness."
Dawes Act-1