- First, they (the 49th Congress) declare who they are and what date they're declaring everything. It's important to get this down.
- They "briefly" summarize the purpose of the Dawes Act. "Briefly" is in quotes, because lawyers.Breaking it down, the summary is like this:
- First, they will allot lands to Native Americans on reservations "in severalty" – meaning to individuals and their families. NOT communal farm land, as Native Americans had traditionally done.
- They include very specific amounts of land per individual. A head of a family gets 160 acres, a single person 18 and older, and any orphan under 18, gets 80 acres; single people under 18 years old get 40 acres.
- Next, they want to extend the protections of American laws to the reservations
- Finally, they start with the "provideds."
- So, all of the above will be the ensuing law provided that: If there isn't enough land to allot those amounts to every individual then they'll all get a proportional amount of what is available
- If the treaty that created the reservation provides for excess lands above and beyond what each individual would get based on this act, then the President can use his discretion to allot lands to each individual as specified in that treaty.
- When the land is only good enough for letting animals graze (as opposed to farming), an additional allotment of land will be made to each individual. The cows lobbied hard for this provision.