As United States government policy concerning Native Americans shifted away from warfare and towards peaceful assimilation, privatization and land allotment were seen as solutions to the so-called “Indian problem.” Privatization of communal reservation land was considered a way to make Native Americans more “American” by giving them a path to American citizenship through land ownership. The Dawes Act established a system for land allotment and the Dawes Commission negotiated with the "Five Civilized Tribes" - Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole - to cede tribal titles of Indian lands so they could be divided into individually owned lots. The initially-praised policy became riddled with internal government conflict and accusations of corruption. Despite lawsuits filed by Chippewa Nation, the ultimate result of the Dawes Act was that the Five Tribes lost most of their national land bases. Read more about it!

The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.

The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.