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Repercussions of the Dawes Act: Leasing, Citizenship and Jurisdiction on the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations, 1887-1896

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Repercussions of the Dawes Act: Leasing, Citizenship and Jurisdiction on the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations, 1887-1896 University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Student Work 12-1-2001 Repercussions of the Dawes Act: Leasing, citizenship and jurisdiction on the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations, 1887-1896 Matthew J. Krezenski University of Nebraska at Omaha Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork Recommended Citation Krezenski, Matthew J., "Repercussions of the Dawes Act: Leasing, citizenship and jurisdiction on the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations, 1887-1896" (2001). Student Work. 504. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork/504 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Work by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. REPERCUSSIONS OF THE DAWES ACT: LEASING, CITIZENSHIP AND JURISDICTION ON THE OMAHA AND WINNEBAGO RESERVATIONS, 1887-1896 A Thesis Presented to the Department of History and the Faculty of the Graduate College In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts University of Nebraska at Omaha by Matthew J. Krezenski December 2001 UMI Number: EP73142 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI Dissertation Publishing UMI EP73142 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQu^t ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 = 1346 THESIS ACCEPTANCE Acceptance for the faculty of the Graduate College, University of Nebraska, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Committee Chairperson Date ------------------Z / REPERCUSSIONS OF THE DAWES ACT: LEASING, CITIZENSHIP AND JURISDICTION ON THE OMAHA AND WINNEBAGO RESERVATIONS, 1887-1896 Matthew J. Krezenski, MA University of Nebraska, 2001 Advisor: Dr. Michael L. Tate The General Allotment Act, or Dawes Severalty Act, passed in 1887, had terrible repercussions for the Native American. Although the negative effects of the Act were widespread across the entire country, the separate impacts on individual reservations varied. On the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations in northeastern Nebraska, the Indians faced an entirely new range of problems after allotment, problems which continue to complicate the lives of residents even today. Whites not only purchased “surplus” lands, but also sought to appropriate the allotted land through dubious leasing schemes. The citizenship clause in the Dawes Act was particularly perplexing. Ostensibly, the Act granted citizenship to allotted Indians and placed them under the protection of the laws of the state in which they resided, while the United States Government retained title to the land held in trust. The difficulty stemmed from the ambiguous new status of the allotted Indian. Did the citizenship clause necessarily sever the existing tribal relationship between the tribes and the federal government? Did jurisdiction over the Indians now fall within state domain, or did it remain under the federal government? Advocates of free-leasing between whites and Indians on the reservations claimed it was the former, while the Indian Office clung to the latter interpretation. In the first few years immediately following the passage of the Act, the Indian Bureau proved agonizingly slow in response to the inquiries of its agents regarding the matter. Eager whites were not so hesitant and, by the time the Indian Office had issued its official stance on leasing, whites were already in possession of much of the allotted land. The ambiguous citizenship clause in the Dawes Act had provided the means for unscrupulous whites to take full advantage of the Indians. For its part, the Indian Office was not completely unaware of what had happened. Indeed, when a new agent arrived in the summer of 1893, the Commissioner’s instructions to him were clear - root out and destroy the pervasive system of illegal leasing and reassert agency supervision over the tribes. This study traces the origins of .the leasing problems on the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations following the Dawes Act and reconstructs the confrontation that ensued between the agent and the free-leasing factions. In the process, it illustrates not only another dark chapter in Indian-white relations in this country, but also demonstrates the need for caution in the appraisal of the roles and reputations of the Indian agents. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Maps................................................................................................................. vi Introduction.................................................................................................................................. 1 1. Debris of the Past...................................................................................... 15 2. The Leasing Land Grab............................................................................38 3. A Curious Condition o f Affairs..............................................................52 4. Determined Adversaries..........................................................................72 5. Summer of Discontent.............................................................................99 6. Tales of Woe .......................................................................................... 121 7. Giving Up the Ghost..............................................................................146 Conclusion .................................................................................................................156 Bibliography............................................................................................................................164 v MAPS Map of Thurston County showing Omaha and Winnebago Reservations INTRODUCTION “ . With this new policy [allotment under the Dawes Severalty Act] will arise new perplexities to be solved and new obstacles to be overcome which will tax the wisdom, patience, and courage of all interested in and working for Indian advancement.” John D. C. Atkins Commissioner of Indian Affairs Annual Report 1887 Congress passed the General Allotment Act, or Dawes Severalty Act, on February 7, 1887.1 The act, which granted land in severalty to individual Indian allottees, was intended to individualize, “civilize” and Christianize the Indian. Advocates of the legislation hoped that private ownership of land would help to acculturate Indians to the white man’s ways. However, many unforeseen and detrimental effects quickly manifested themselves in the years following passage of the law. Ironically, this proposed solution to the “Indian problem” was itself the source of additional calamities, especially those associated with the alienation of Native lands despite the act’s provision for a twenty-five year government trust period designed to prevent transfer of allotments to non-Indians. The leasing controversy on the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations illustrates how white “land grabbers” twisted the intent and spirit of the citizenship clause in the Dawes Act to facilitate this alienation. Omaha allotment actually predated passage of the Dawes Severalty Act. When the tribe ceded its traditional hunting grounds to the federal government in 1854, it agreed to settle on 300,000 acres in the northeastern comer of present-day Nebraska. 2 Article Six stipulated that in the future reservation land could be surveyed and assigned to individual Indians. In 1865, however, the Omaha agreed to sell the northern portion of their reservation to the federal government, which intended to settle 1200 Winnebago refugees there. Article Four of this new treaty, which superseded the arrangements made in 1854, changed the conditions under which allotments would be made. Since in most cases the new terms reduced the amount of land the Omahas would receive, they protested at first, but eventually agreed to the less advantageous terms of the 1865 treaty.4 The U. S. land office finished the reservation survey work early in the summer of 1867 and the Indian agent completed the allotments by 1871.5 Although the Omahas received certificates of allotment in that year, the certificates did not grant actual title to the land.6 On August 7, 1882, Congress passed the Omaha Allotment Act. Section One of the act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to sell the portion of the Omaha reservation that lay to the west of the Sioux City and Nebraska Railroad line. Subsequent sections announced that the land ceded would be open to white settlement and that all proceeds from the sale of that land would be placed into a fund for the benefit of the Omahas, to be expended at the Secretary of the Interior’s discretion. The act apportioned allotments according to the following formula: 160 acres to each head of household; eighty acres to each single adult over eighteen years of age; eighty acres to each orphan under eighteen years of age; and forty acres to each child under eighteen years of age. This new allotment schedule superseded the terms of the 1865 Treaty and also gave Indians who already held
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