The American West (c1835-c1895): Indian Appropriations Act 1851

The Indian Appropriations Act provided government money to pay for moving Plains Indians onto reservations. Due to the westward expansion, more and more white Americans wanted to use Indian Territory land. Reservations were areas of land ‘reserved’ for American Indians. They were controlled and managed by the US government.

The Indian Appropriations Act had several aims...

Firstly it represented a continuation in the government’s aims to move Indians away from land that white Americans wanted to use and to protect American Indians from whites.

However, it also aimed to encourage Plains Indians to live more like white Americans. Reservations restricted the amount of land Plains Indians had to hunt buffalo, and therefore forced some Indians to try and farm the land, just like white Americans.