Dawes Commission: Map of Seminole Nation
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Cartographer:
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Dawes Commission
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Title:
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Map of Seminole Nation
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Date:
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1904
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Published:
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Washington, D.C.
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Width:
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9 inches / 23 cm
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Height:
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15 inches / 39 cm
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Map ref:
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USA9077
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Description:
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This map shows the section of Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) granted to the Seminole Nation by the United States Government after the tribe was forced to leave its ancestral home in Florida. It was published to accompany a report to the Department of the Interior by the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, also known as the Dawes Commission after its first chairman, Henry Dawes.
The Dawes Commission was created in 1893 to negotiate with the five "civilized tribes", the Creek, the Seminoles, the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Chickasaw, all of whom had been forcibly relocated to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears in the 1830s. The Commission's goal was to convince the members of these nations to abandon their communal tribal land rights, to divide these lands into individual parcels, and to grant these lots to individual members of the tribe. By this method, the US government hoped to compile citizenship rolls for each of the five nations.
The grid which overlays this map of the Seminole Nation shows the individual lots which were to be allotted to members of the tribe, with those areas already parceled out coloured orange. Lands reserved for mission schools or tribal government use are marked in blue.
The results of the Dawes Commission were devastating to many member of these five nations, some of whom are still fighting court battles to this day to reclaim nationhood which was stripped away from them. African Americans with some Native American ancestry were particularly affected by the Dawes Commission as an individuals outward appearance was often used as the primary determinent of belonging to a tribal nation. The Five Nations also lost much of the land which had originally been granted to them in Oklahoma as the Dawes Commission was authorized to auction off any "surplus land" after all of the members of a tribe had been allocated a plot. This, of course, created a perverse incentive for the Commission to undercount or reject members of the tribes so that more land could be sold to European-American settlers. Individual members of the tribes were also allowed to sell their parcels if they wished, something which had not previously been allowed when land was held communally by the whole Tribal Nation.
Lithographed by Julius Bien & Co. and printed by the Office of Government Printing for the Department of the Interior. Printed colour. (SL) [USA9077] |