Anton Troyer

Allotment was one step in forcing this assimilation process.

An allotment was seen as a way to accelerate that process of Americanization.

The idea was that Native families would own their own land.

They could farm it and build generational wealth just like white Americans.

They, too, could pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Individual families were left to the mercy of businessmen who did whatever it took to snatch up land, parcel by parcel.

Not all Native nations and tribes participated in allotment the same way.

Even among the Ojibwe people, the experience was different.

But for many Native people, the process of allotment and U.S.

westward expansion left them estranged from their own land.

By the end of the allotment era, tribes had lost control of over 90 million acres of land.