Question

Why did the American Government pass the Dawes Act?


1 To help Natives learn to speak and read English.


2 To force Natives to live separated in single families on their own land, rather than together in a tribe, because they would be living more like Americans and less like Natives.


3 To move Natives into cities where they would have to change to adapt.

Answer 1

2. The Dawes Act (1887) aimed to break up tribal communal landholdings and force Native Americans into individual family allotments so they would adopt Euro-American private-property and farming practices — a policy meant to assimilate them and weaken tribal structures (and it led to large losses of Native land).