The Dawes Act of 1887 sought to assimilate Native Americans by, among other things, transforming their traditional uses and attitudes about land and land ownership to more mainstream American values of private ownership and settled farming. Some Native Americans did become farmers, convinced that assimilation into white society and a property deed were their only protection against those who would rob them of their lands. Others rejected the white man's world of markets, deeds, schools and Christianity. Encouraging resistance, they deemed the government's allotment strategy a conspiracy to destroy tribal culture and organization.
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1543
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