The Varied Response of Cherokees to Land Allotment

Abstract

This paper analyzes Cherokee opposition to allotment, a United States policy, expressed in the 1887 Dawes Act and other U.S. legislation and executive orders, that coerced tribal nations to break their communally held lands into private holdings, or allotments. This paper argues that the shifting beliefs, political views, and grassroots movements surrounding allotment, and its closely related issues, were both based in and influenced by personal and political interests, as well as from traditional, collective Cherokee values and spirituality