Henry Laurens Dawes | |
|---|---|
 Dawesc. 1870s | |
| United States Senator fromMassachusetts | |
| In office March 4, 1875 – March 3, 1893 | |
| Preceded by | William B. Washburn |
| Succeeded by | Henry Cabot Lodge |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts | |
| In office March 4, 1857 – March 4, 1875 | |
| Preceded by | Mark Trafton |
| Succeeded by | Chester W. Chapin |
| Constituency | 11th district (1857–1863) 10th district (1863–1873) 11th district (1873–1875) |
| Member of theMassachusetts Senate from theBerkshire district | |
| In office 1850 | |
| Preceded by | John Z. Goodrich William A. Phelps |
| Succeeded by | Richard P. Brown Asa G. Welch |
| Member of theMassachusetts House of Representatives | |
| In office 1848–1849 1852 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1816-10-30)October 30, 1816 |
| Died | February 5, 1903(1903-02-05) (aged 86) |
| Political party | Republican |
| Children | 5 |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Profession | Lawyer and Doctor |
| Signature | .jpg) |
Henry Laurens Dawes (October 30, 1816 – February 5, 1903) was an American attorney and politician, aRepublicanUnited States senator andUnited States representative from Massachusetts. He is notable for theDawes Act (1887), which was intended to stimulate the assimilation of Native Americans by ending the tribal government and control of communal lands. Especially directed at the tribes inIndian Territory, it provided for the allotment of tribal lands to individual households of tribal members, and for their being granted United States citizenship. This also made them subject to state and federal taxes. In addition, extinguishing tribal land claims in this territory later enabled the admission ofOklahoma as a state in 1907.
Dawes was born inCummington, Massachusetts, in 1816. After graduating fromYale University in 1839, he taught atGreenfield, Massachusetts, and also editedThe Greenfield Gazette.[1]
He studied law with an established firm, and in 1842, was admitted to the bar. He began the practice of law in the village ofNorth Adams, Massachusetts. For a time he editedTheNorth Adams Transcript.[1]
Dawes joined the Republican Party and was elected to theMassachusetts House of Representatives, serving in 1848–1849 and in 1852. He served in the state Senate in 1850. He was elected as a delegate to theMassachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853.[1]
From 1853 to 1857 Dawes served as appointed state district attorney for the western district of Massachusetts.[1] He was elected to theUnited States House of Representatives in 1856, serving multiple terms until 1875. In 1868 he received 2,000 shares of stock in theCrédit Mobilier of America railroad construction company from RepresentativeOakes Ames, as part of theUnion Pacific railway's influence-buying efforts.
In March 1871 Dawes supported federal financing forFerdinand Vandeveer Hayden'sfifth geological survey of the territories, which became a driving force in the creation ofYellowstone National Park. Dawes's son, Chester Dawes, was a member of the survey team.Annie, the first commercial boat on Yellowstone Lake, was purportedly named after his daughter, Anna Dawes. In late 1871 and early 1872, Dawes became an ardent supporter of a bill to createYellowstone National Park in order to preserve its wilderness and resources.[2]
In 1875 Dawes was chosen by the state legislature (as was the practice at the time) to succeedWilliam B. Washburn asU.S. Senator from Massachusetts. He served multiple terms, until 1893.
During his long period of legislative activity, Dawes served in the House on the committees on elections, ways and means, and appropriations. He took a prominent part in passage of the anti-slavery andReconstruction measures during and after theCivil War, in tariff legislation, and in the establishment of a fish commission. He also initiated the production of daily weather reports to be provided by the federal government.[1]
In the Senate, Dawes was chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs. He concentrated on enactment of laws that he believed were for the benefit of the Indians. In the late 19th century, after theIndian Wars, there were widespread fears that the Indians were disappearing and that their tribes would cease to exist. In the West, Indians had been forced onto reservations and were struggling with poor lands and too little area, as well as encroachment by white settlers. In the East, most Indians were landless and were largely believed to have entered or been marginal to majority culture. Well-meaning people such as Dawes believed that the Indians had to assimilate to majority culture to survive, and should take up subsistence farming, still dominant in agriculture.
In 1869 Dawes became a founding member of the Monday Evening Club, a men's literary society inPittsfield, Massachusetts.[3]
During the presidency ofRutherford B. Hayes (spanning 1877–81), Dawes was a prominent member of congressional "Half-Breeds" within the Republican Party allied with Hayes' support forcivil service reform.[4] Along with fellow Massachusetts senatorial Half-BreedGeorge F. Hoar and Rep.John Davis Long, he became one of the faction's leading strategists.[5]
During the1880 United States presidential election, the agreed strategy planned was to prevent either former presidentUlysses S. Grant, the leader of "Stalwarts," norBlaine faction leaderJames G. Blaine of Maine, from obtaining the nomination at theRepublican National Convention.[5] Instead, the Half-Breeds would push to nominate faction memberGeorge F. Edmunds, a senator fromVermont.
However, Sen. Hoar admonished Half-Breed supporters that Republican delegates should not make their preferences clearly visible to others.[5] Although the Massachusetts delegation did support Edmunds, the Vermont Half-Breed failed to garner enough support, and the faction ultimately formed an alliance with Blaine supporters in successfully nominatingJames A. Garfield ofOhio.
When President Garfield took office, Blaine was madeUnited States Secretary of State for the administration. The Maine Republican's credentials as a Half-Breed were spotty due to his history of antipathy towards civil service reform, though nonetheless were welcomed by Hoar and Dawes as a member of the faction.[5] However, Edmunds, who Half-Breeds supported in 1880, broke from Dawes and Hoar in refusing to accept Blaine as a genuine convert.[5] Indeed, the Vermont senator refused to support Blaine when the latter was nominated by the Republican National Convention in the1884 presidential election.
Like all early Half-Breeds who were relatively prominent during the Hayes presidency, Dawes supported civil service reform. During the presidency ofJames A. Garfield, he wrote two letters at separate occasions in July 1881 on the matter.[6][7]
The Dawes Act was intended to assimilate Indians by encouraging them to undertake subsistence farming, then widespread in American society. Enacted in 1887, it was amended in 1891, again in 1898 by theCurtis Act, and again in 1906 by theBurke Act.
TheDawes Commission, set up under an Indian Office appropriation bill in 1893, was created not to administer the Act but to attempt to persuade the tribes excluded from the Act by treaties to agree to the allotment plan. After gaining agreement from representatives of theFive Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory, the commission appointed registrars to register members on rolls prior to allotment of lands. Many tribes have since based membership and citizen qualifications on descent from persons listed as Indians on theDawes Rolls. (Also listed were freedmen of each tribe, and intermarried whites.)
On leaving the Senate in 1893, Dawes became chairman of the commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, also known as the Dawes Commission, and served for ten years. He negotiated with the tribes for the extinction of the communal title to their land and for the dissolution of the tribal governments. The goal was to make tribal members a constituent part of the United States.[1] In the process Native American tribes lost about 90 million acres (360,000 km2) of treaty land, or about two thirds of their 1887 land base, over the life of theDawes Act. About 90,000 Indians were made landless. The Act forced Native people onto small tracts of land, distant from their kin relations. The allotment policy depleted the land base and ended hunting as a means of subsistence, creating a crisis for many tribes.
TheCoolidge administration studied the effects of the Dawes Act and the current conditions for Indians in what is known as theMeriam Report, completed in 1928. It found that the Dawes Act had been used illegally to deprive Native Americans of their land rights.
Dawes died inPittsfield, Massachusetts, on February 5, 1903.[8]
Aidan Quinn played Dawes in the filmBury My Heart at Wounded Knee, adapted fromDee Brown's 1970 history of Native Americans, the United States, and the West
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Dawes, Henry Laurens".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 873.Ex-Senator Dawes had been for ten years out of public life when he died, and ten years is a long while for the memory of public service to last in so busy a land ...
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts's 11th congressional district 1857–1863 | District eliminated |
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts's 10th congressional district 1863–1873 | Succeeded by |
| New district | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts's 11th congressional district 1873–1875 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 1) from Massachusetts 1875–1893 Served alongside:George S. Boutwell andGeorge F. Hoar | Succeeded by |
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Chairs of theUnited States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs | ||
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| Select Committee (1977–1993) | ||
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