Use the excerpt from the Dawes Act to answer the question.

What effect did the policy have on Native American peoples?

A.
It divided reservations into land allotments to be given to individual Native American families.

B.
It prevented white settlers from displacing Native Americans from their ancestral lands.

C.
It moved all Native Americans to a single reservation and then allotted land to individual families.

D.
It took all land from Native American reservations and put it up for sale.
Excerpt from the Dawes Act (1887)

An Act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases where any tribe or band of Indians has been, or shall hereafter be, located upon any reservation created for their use… the President of the United States [is] authorized… to allot the lands in said reservation in severalty to any Indian located thereon in quantities as follows:

To each head of a family, one-quarter of a section;

To each single person over eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section;

To each orphan child under eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section; and

To each other single person under eighteen years now living, or who may be born prior to the date of the order of the President directing an allotment of the lands embraced in any reservation, one-sixteenth of a section:

Approved, February, 8, 1887.

SAY THE CORRECT ANSWER AND EXPLAIN WHY, DON'T GUESS

The correct answer is A. It divided reservations into land allotments to be given to individual Native American families. This is because the Dawes Act authorized the President of the United States to allot the lands in reservations in severalty to any Indian located thereon in quantities as specified in the Act. This included allotting one-quarter of a section to each head of a family, one-eighth of a section to each single person over eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section to each orphan child under eighteen years of age, and one-sixteenth of a section to each other single person under eighteen years. This policy had the effect of dividing reservations into land allotments to be given to individual Native American families.