Dawes Act
The Dawes Act of 1887 purported to protect Indian property rights during the Oklahoma Land Rush. It required American Indians to register with the government and anglicize their names, creating a system that was widely abused and, in its proper use, regonized as an effort to abolish Native American governments.
The Miriam Report of 1928 documented fraud and misappropriation by government agents. In particular, the law was used to deprive Indians of their land rights. Tribal members were to be assigned 160 acres of land each, ending an ancient practice of tribal tenure that largely rejected private land holdings. The act was repealed in 1934 with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act.
Among provisions of the Dawes Act intended to vanquish much of the original cultural heritage of Native Americans was one that required those enrolled as Native Americans under a federal system of racial pedegree to abandon their birth names and adopt anglicized names.
Dawes Rolls listings of indigenous people who registered with the United States Government in the early 20th Century remain the primary legal documents used for establishing membership rights in federally approved tribal governments of the early 21st Century.
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