ABSTRACT
The United States entered into a treaty with the Lakota bands of the Sioux Nation in 1868 for the cession of tribal lands and the delineation of the Great Sioux Reservation. Assimilation was a tactic used to expand the membership sovereignty of the United States and erode tribal membership sovereignty. The effects of assimilation efforts also depended on the spatial arrangement of the reservations and the influence that the agents had over the tribal members. As part of the farming efforts, tribal members were encouraged to take allotments of 160 acres and farm them. Growing demands by non-Indians for reservation lands and continued resistence to assimilation by American Indians encouraged Congress to pass the General Allotment Act in 1887. The General Allotment Act authorized the executive branch of the federal government to allot lands on Indian reservations.
