The Dawes Act of 1887, also known as the Dawes Severalty Act or General Allotment Act, was a bill passed by congress to split up communal lands held by tribal nations. The purpose of the bill, as stated by its sponsor Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, was to radically assimilate Native people into white society by introducing individual land-ownership …
The 1493 Doctrine of Discovery guided the colonization of the Americas and became part of U.S. law, history, and Euro-American dominant culture. This doctrine is a set of papals from the late 1400’s put out by the Pope. They are the legal basis for the theft of lands in the non-European world by colonizing European powers and legal justification for …