Burke Act
The Burke Act, enacted in 1906, was an extension of the earlier General Allotment Act (Dawes Severalty Act) of 1887, which aimed to assimilate American Indians by allotting them individual parcels of tribal land. Under the Burke Act, the trust period during which land could not be sold was subject to indefinite extension at the president's discretion, but the Secretary of the Interior could expedite the process if the individual Indian demonstrated competency to manage their affairs. This act aimed to resolve issues surrounding Indian citizenship and land ownership; however, it resulted in many allotments being sold or mortgaged shortly after the trust period ended, often without thorough evaluations of individuals' readiness to manage their own land.
The act was controversial, as it tended to benefit non-Indians, with a significant loss of Indian-held land occurring over time. By 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act halted the allotment process, Indians had lost a substantial portion of their land mass. Notably, the citizenship offered through the Burke Act became moot when Congress granted citizenship to all Indians in 1924. Overall, the Burke Act reflects the complex dynamics of U.S. policies toward Native American land ownership and the broader implications of assimilationist strategies.
Burke Act
In 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act (or Dawes Severalty Act). This act sought to make small farmers out of American Indians by dividing tribal lands into individual allotments. Indians taking allotments received United States citizenship; the government held the title for the lands in trust for twenty-five years, during which time they could not be sold. At the end of the period, the Indian would receive a fee patent giving him full ownership of the land.
The administration of the General Allotment Act prompted considerable criticism. Many of those sympathetic to the Indians were concerned at the distinction between citizenship, which was taken up at the outset, and ownership, which came at the end of the trust period. The discrepancy became a source of worry in 1905 when the Supreme Court ruled that citizenship exempted an Indian from direct federal supervision, thus invalidating federal restrictions on liquor on allotments. Other people simply thought that the trust period postponed too long the time when Indians might sell their allotments.
In 1906, Congress passed the Burke Act, named for South Dakota congressman Charles Henry Burke. The act provided that the trust period could be extended indefinitely on presidential authority, though it also permitted the secretary of the interior to cut the period short if requested, provided an individual Indian could show competency to manage his or her own affairs. In either case, citizenship would not be granted until the end of the trust period, during which the Indian would remain subject to federal control.
The Burke Act had a major effect on the awarding of allotments, though not the one that some of its supporters had hoped. Though certificates of competency (and fee patents) were awarded cautiously at first, many allotments quickly passed out of Indian possession once they could be sold or mortgaged. During the act’s first decade of operation, roughly ten thousand fee patents were issued, the vast majority of allotments passing out of Indian ownership. When the ardent assimilationist Fred K. Lane became secretary of the interior in 1917, the process speeded up. Competency certificates and fee patents were often given without the requisite individual investigation, sometimes to Indians who had not asked for them. In four years, twenty thousand fee patents were issued, again with much of the land quickly alienated.
During the 1920s, when Burke was commissioner of Indian affairs, the process slowed, but the overall trend of allotment lands passing into the hands of non-Indians continued. By 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act finally stopped the allotment process, Indians had lost 86 million of the 138 million acres they had controlled in 1887. In the meantime the citizenship available under the Burke Act had been made redundant by Congress’s grant of citizenship to all Indians in 1924.
Bibliography
Deyo, Nicholas, et al. "Trails on Tribal Lands in the United States." Landscape and Urban Planning 125 (2014): 130–39. Print.
Frye, Dustin. "The Indian Reorganization Act, Tribal Sovereignty, and Economic Development." Midwest Economics Association, Evanston, IL (2014). Print.
Genetin-Pilawa, C. Joseph. Crooked Paths to Allotment: The Fight over Federal Indian Policy after the Civil War. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2012. Print.
MacLeod, William Christie. The American Indian Frontier. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print
Nichols, Roger L., ed. The American Indian: Past and Present. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 2014. Print.