Federal policy of assimilation and dispossession

Tribal religion and cultural practices are outlawed, tribal government eliminated, and reservation lands reduced by over 60%.

Government policies in the 1950s and 1960s force tribal members off the reservations and into urban areas in a continuation of assimilation policies.

Congress enacts legislation that allots 160-acre tracts of land to heads of households of American Indian families. The rest of the reservation land is opened to homesteaders. Eventually, American Indian-held lands are reduced by more than two thirds.

The assimilation of Indian children through the Federal Indian boarding school system was intentional and part of that broader goal of Indian territorial dispossession for the expansion of the United States.

From the earliest days of the Republic, the United States’ official objective—based on Federal and other records—was to sever the cultural and economic connection between Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, the Native Hawaiian Kingdom, and their territories.