These guys were all about the details. Here are the opening lines to the Dawes Act:

Forty-Ninth Congress of the United States of American; At the Second Session, Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the sixth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and eight-six. An Act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians, and for other purposes.

The first few lines summed up the Act into one convenient sentence. It really covers everything; the rest is just details. The "for other purposes" makes this a real page-turner: What other purposes? If we'd been a member of one of the tribes covered by this Act, we'd have bit a little worried after reading that line.