1. Luther Standing Bear (1868-1939)
Standing Bear lived through the Allotment Period and attended Carlisle Indian School.
In his writing he describes this history and the transformations the U.S. “cold war” brought on the Lakota

2. Carlisle Indian School: “Kill the Indian and Save the Man”
“Civilization”
Forbid Native Languages (English Only)
Instituted “civilized” fashion: hair cutting, clothes
Farm-outing program (detribalize)

3. The Dawes Act (or General Allotment Act) of 1887
160 acre allotments of land to head-of-household (remaining land for auction)
Individual, private-property owning citizens
U.S. citizenship (no longer separate, sovereign people: “poof, you’re no longer an Indian”)
Between the legislation reduced tribal estates in the U.S. from 150 million Acres to about 48 million.

4. The imposition of “human nature”
Merrill Gates, Advocate for Dawes Policy:
“We have. . .the absolute need of awakening in the savage Indian broader desires and ampler wants. To bring him out of savagery into citizenship we must make the Indian more intelligently selfish before we can make him unselfishly intelligent. We need to awaken in him wants. In his dull savagery he must be touched by the wings of the divine angel of discontent. The desire for property may become an intense educating force Discontent...is needed to get the Indian out of the blanket and into trousers, and trousers with pockets...that ached to be filled with dollars.”