APRIL 2024 | 29 THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff. by individual tribe members.”6 There were varying motivations for the allotment policy, but the central animating features were a desire to assimilate Indian tribes and peoples to Western norms and institutions and to free Indian land for non- Indian settlement.7 “[A]dvocates of the policy believed that individual ownership of property would turn the Indians from a savage, primitive, tribal way of life to a settled, agrarian, and civilized one.”8 “[W]ith lands in individual hands and (eventually) freely alienable, white settlers would have more space of their own.”9 The allotment policy proved disastrous for Indian tribes and tribal members. Almost immediately, approximately 60 million acres of “surplus land” left after individual tribal members received their allotments were opened to non-Indian settlement.10 An additional 27 million acres passed into non-Indian hands through the removal of restrictions on the alienation of allotments.11 The removal of these restrictions freed the allotments from federal supervision and also subjected them to state taxation.12 Subsequently, “[t]housands of Indian owners disposed of their lands by voluntary or fraudulent sales; many others lost their lands at sheriffs’ sales for nonpayment of taxes or other liens.”13 Recognizing the deleterious effects allotment had on Indian tribes and their lands, Congress repudiated the policy in 1934 with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act.14 The first section of the act provided that “hereafter no land of any Indian reservation ... shall be allotted in severalty to any Indian.”15 It extended the trust period of allotments indefinitely and restored any unsold surplus lands to tribal ownership.16 It authorized tribes to reorganize through the adoption of constitutions and bylaws and charters of incorporation.17 It facilitated the rebuilding of tribal land bases by authorizing the purchase of lands for tribes to be held in trust for their benefit by the United States.18 Despite these advances, however, “Congress made no attempt to undo the dramatic effects of the allotment years on the ownership of former Indian lands.”19 FRACTIONATION Allotment was not only harmful because of the literal loss of land. Even for those allotments that remained – and continue to remain – in Indian hands, the policy nevertheless has resulted in “constructive dispossession”20 through the fractionation of ownership of allotted lands. Indian families may continue to own their allotments, but because that ownership often is shared among hundreds if not thousands of co-owners, “the result on the ground is realistic deprivation of
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