THE UNITED STATES RECOGNIZED STANDING BEAR’S LIBERTY WHILE EXPANDING CONTROL OVER NATIVE LIFE

The 1880s and 1890s brought major transformations in federal Indian policy.

Reformers who criticized corruption or cruelty did not always support tribal sovereignty.

Many believed Native communities should be absorbed into the dominant society through individual landholding, English-language education, Christianity, and the erosion of tribal political structures.

That ideology helped produce policies such as allotment.

The General Allotment Act of 1887, commonly called the Dawes Act, authorized the division of communal tribal lands into individual allotments for many Native nations, with land classified as “surplus” opened to non-Native acquisition.