WEBVTT

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You know, usually when we talk about inheriting

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property, there's this this ingrained expectation

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of wealth, or at least some kind of tangible,

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practical benefit. Right, like it's the ultimate

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symbol of passing down a legacy. You inherit

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a house, you live in it, generational stability.

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Exactly. You inherit a piece of land, you build

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a cabin on it, or maybe you sell it to put your

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kids through college. I mean, it's a foundational,

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almost mythological part of the American dream.

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It's how families build wealth over time. But

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I want you, the listener, to imagine a completely

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mind -boggling scenario that just turns that

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entire concept on its head. Oh, this is such

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a wild scenario. It really is. So imagine you

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receive an official government -stamped notice

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in the mail. You open it up, and it says you

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have inherited a piece of property. Sounds great

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so far. Right. But then you look closely at the

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deed. And your ownership share isn't half. It

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isn't a quarter. It's not even like 1%. Your

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legal share of this land is one nine millionth

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of a fraction of the whole. A mathematical sliver

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that is so small you couldn't even stand on it

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if you tried. And it gets wilder. You sit down

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at your kitchen table, you pull out a calculator,

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and you do the math on the income this piece

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of land generates. And you realize that based

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on your one nine millionth share, it would take

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exactly 177 years for your specific piece of

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this inheritance to generate a single solitary

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penny. I think the wildest part of that scenario

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is that it isn't some hypothetical math puzzle.

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I mean, that is a documented daily reality for

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thousands of descendants who are currently navigating

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this exact system. It sounds like a glitch in

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the matrix. I mean, how does a modern legal system

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even arrive at a mathematical absurdity like

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that? It takes over a century of very specific,

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very destructive policy to get there. Well, welcome

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to today's Deep Dive. We are going to be looking

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at a piece of legislation from 1887 called the

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Dawes Act, which is also known in the history

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books as the General Allotment Act. Yeah, and

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it is arguably one of the most profound and honestly

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destructive pieces of social engineering in American

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history. And its shockwaves are still actively

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shaping reality today. To really get to the bottom

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of this, we've pulled from a stack of incredible

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sources. We're looking at extensive historical

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records from the 19th century, detailed demographic

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and administrative data we found compiled on

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Wikipedia, and legal case summaries. Specifically,

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we're looking at a fascinating and really mind

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-bending 1987 Supreme Court case called Hodel

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v. Irving. Right, and the mission here is to

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explore the profound long -term impacts of the

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Dawes Act on Native American land loss, because

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we don't just want to look at what happened in

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the 1880s as some dusty historical event. No,

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we need to understand the compounding mathematical

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effects over time. Exactly. Specifically, we

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are going to unpack the modern administrative

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nightmare known as fractionation. It's this bureaucratic

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black hole that continues to haunt the descendants

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of these policies, literally paralyzing millions

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of acres of land today. OK, let's unpack this.

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Let's do it. Because before we can possibly understand

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the modern mathematical nightmare of waiting

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two centuries for a single penny, we have to

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travel back to the 1800s. We have to understand

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the mindset of the U .S. government at the time

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and what policymakers in Washington broadly termed

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the Indian problem. Right. To set the stage properly.

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We have to look at the sheer demographic pressure

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that was building in the early 1800s. The United

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States was experiencing this unprecedented influx

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of European immigrants. And they needed somewhere

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to go. Exactly. These new arrivals were constantly

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pushing westward, pressing violently against

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the eastern borders of Indian territories. And

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remember, this is where the federal government

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had already forcefully relocated most Native

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American tribes during earlier removal policies.

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Like the Trail of Tears. Yes, exactly. You essentially

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have a pressure cooker situation. On one side,

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you have unending waves of settlers operating

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under a European legal system of private property

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and land speculation. And on the other side,

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you have indigenous nations operating under entirely

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different cultural, legal, and, well, communal

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systems. And the friction was just continuous.

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So searching for a quote unquote, quick solution

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to this fiction. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs

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at the time, a man named William Medill, proposed

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establishing what he termed colonies. Which today

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we know as reservations, right? Exactly. His

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policy was to carve out territories exclusively

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for Native Americans located far out in the region

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beyond the Mississippi River. I'm trying to wrap

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my head around the logic of the time. The idea

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was basically a policy of total physical segregation.

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That was the explicit goal, yeah. Yeah. physical

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separation. Just move the tribes far enough west

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so that the highly coveted southeastern land

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is entirely freed up for white settlers who are

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actively lobbying the government for access to

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new territories. But Native American tribes didn't

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just quietly accept this imposition. I mean,

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they resisted fiercely. Yeah. And this resistance

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led to decades of what were broadly categorized

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as the Indian Wars in the West. A prolonged bloody

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period of conflict. Very bloody. It was a clash

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between indigenous nations defending their homelands

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and the expanding United States Army. But the

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military disparity and those unending waves of

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settlers eventually forced a tipping point, didn't

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they? Yeah, the tribes facing the full industrialized

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force of the U .S. military. eventually negotiated

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treaties and agreements to resettle on these

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designated reservations. And the scale of what

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they retained is actually massive. I mean, according

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to the historical records we're looking at, Native

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Americans ended up holding over 155 million acres

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of land in this reservation system. Which is

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huge. To visualize 155 million acres, you have

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to picture a landmass roughly the size of Texas.

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Wow. And this wasn't just barren wasteland either,

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as it's sometimes mistakenly portrayed. This

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land range from arid deserts in the southwest

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to incredibly rich prime agricultural land in

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the plains and dense resource -rich forests in

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the northwest. Let me stop and ask a crucial

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question about how these reservations actually

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functioned back then. Once they were relocated

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to this Texas -sized amount of land, how were

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they living? Because my understanding is that

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they weren't just given individual deeds to houses

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like a modern subdivision. No. Not at all. Crucially,

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under the reservation system established by these

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treaties, the tribes maintained the legal right

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to govern themselves. OK. They certainly had

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to adjust to new, often really challenging locations.

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But they retained their highly cohesive tribal

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units. They were still led by their chosen chiefs.

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They operated through their ancient traditions.

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And most importantly, for our deep dive today,

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they held the land communally. Communally. Meaning.

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The tribe as a sovereign entity owned the land,

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not like John Smith as an individual. Right,

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exactly. Everyone in the tribe had a right. to

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live there, to hunt, to farm. The tribe, as a

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social cohesive unit, was completely intact.

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So the land was the physical manifestation of

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their community. Yes. But as we move out of the

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Indian Wars and into the late 1880s, the ideological

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winds in Washington change abruptly. Oh, here

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we go. The era of physical separation ends and

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the era of forced cultural assimilation begins.

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I need to play devil's advocate here for a second.

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Why change a system that had just been established

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after decades of horrific war? They finally have

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a system of Why upend it? Well, the reformers,

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politicians, and East Coast philanthropists looked

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at the reservations and decided that keeping

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Native Americans isolated just wasn't working.

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Working for who, though? Right, exactly. They

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argued that the frontier was closing, white settlement

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was going to surround these reservations anyway,

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and that completely assimilating Native Americans

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into mainstream white American culture was the

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only way to ensure their survival. It's a dark

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irony. Even the people who claim to admire Native

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Americans, you know, the self -proclaimed friends

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of the Indian, believed this. They genuinely

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did. They fundamentally believed that for the

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indigenous person to survive, the indigenous

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culture had to die. They believed the tribes

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needed to abandon their communal land holding,

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their ancient traditions and their very identities.

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And the central champion of this new aggressive

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assimilation approach was Senator Henry Dawes

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of Massachusetts. He launched a massive legislative

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campaign to, in his exact words, rid the nation

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of tribalism. Wow. And the weapon he chose to

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accomplish this wasn't the US cavalry. It was

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the legal concept of private property. I want

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to pause here because this is such a massive,

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almost incomprehensible paradigm shift. Let's

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try to visualize this. Imagine you, the listener,

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live in a town where everyone shares a massive,

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thriving community garden. OK, I like this analogy.

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Right. It's just how your people have lived for

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a thousand years. The land belongs to everyone.

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It provides for everyone. And your social status

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is based on how well you contribute to the whole.

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It's a completely interconnected ecosystem of

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survival and social bond. Exactly. Then a bureaucrat

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from a capital city 2 ,000 miles away shows up

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in your town. They look at your thriving garden

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and say, this is primitive. To make you better,

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more civilized citizens, we are going to carve

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this community garden up. We're going to put

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up fences, give everyone a tiny isolated square,

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and then we're going to sell the rest of the

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garden to complete strangers. Strangers who just

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want to make a profit. Yeah. You didn't ask for

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it. You don't want it. But the military is backing

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them up. So it's happening. That analogy captures

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the exact violence of the policy, because the

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core belief driving Senator Dawes and his allies

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was that communal living was inherently uncivilized.

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They literally thought it bred laziness. That

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is so arrogant. It was very arrogant. In their

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Victorian capitalist worldview, the only way

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to be a prosperous, self -supporting American

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citizen was to embrace the idea of land as real

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estate. It had to be something you owned individually,

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something you fenced off, developed for personal

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profit, and could buy or sell. When you realize

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that land wasn't just property to these tribes

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but literally their cultural operating system,

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this whole policy takes on a much darker tone.

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It completely rewrites the DNA of a society when

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you turn a shared ancestral home into a tradable

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commodity. The destruction of the tribal unit

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was the explicit goal. And that brings us to

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the actual physical mechanics of how this was

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executed. On February 8, 1887, President Grover

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Cleveland officially signed the Dawes Severity

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Act, the General Lawman Act, into law. OK, let's

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get into the nuts and bolts. How exactly did

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Senator Dawes and President Cleveland legally

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mandate the carving up of this metaphorical community

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garden? According to our sources, the legislation

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had six very specific stated goals. Right. The

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reformers intended to accomplish six things.

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First, break up the tribes as a cohesive social

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unit. Second, encourage individual initiative

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and competition. Third, further the progress

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of native farmers by making them reliant on their

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own plots. OK, that's three. Fourth, reduce the

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massive cost of native administration for the

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federal government. Fifth, secure specific parts

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of the reservation securely as Indian land. And

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sixth, open the remainder of the surplus land

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to white settlers for profit. That sixth goal

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opening the remainder of the land for profit

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is doing an unbelievable amount of heavy lifting,

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and we will absolutely spend time on that. Oh,

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definitely. But first, let's look at the actual

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math of the allotments. When the surveyors showed

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up, how much of the garden did an individual

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actually get? The math was rigidly laid out in

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the act. A designated head of a family would

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receive a grant of 160 acres. A single person

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or an orphan over the age of 18 would receive

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80 acres. And any person under the age of 18

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would receive a 40 -acre parcel. Now, I know

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enough about property law to know you can't just

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hand someone a deed and expect them to instantly

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know how to navigate the American real estate

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market, especially if they've never participated

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in a cash economy. Did they just hand over the

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deeds on day one? They absolutely did not. The

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legislation came with major strings attached.

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The allotments were to be held in trust by the

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U .S. government for a period of 25 years. Let's

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do a quick ELI 5 explain, like I'm five on what

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held in trust actually means in this 1887 context.

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If the government holds it in trust, what does

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the Native American farmer actually have? Think

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of it like a parent opening a bank account for

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a teenager. The teenager can use the money for

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approved things, but the parent's name is on

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the account and the parent has the ultimate veto

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power over major decisions. So they can't just

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drain the account. Right. In this case, the U

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.S. government held the actual legal title to

00:12:36.340 --> 00:12:38.980
the land. The Native American al -Ati had the

00:12:38.980 --> 00:12:41.600
right to live on it and farm it, but they legally

00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:44.590
could not sell it. lease it to outsiders or use

00:12:44.590 --> 00:12:47.210
it as collateral for a loan for 25 years. And

00:12:47.210 --> 00:12:49.870
what was the reasoning behind that? Well, the

00:12:49.870 --> 00:12:52.789
paternalistic theory was that this 25 year window

00:12:52.789 --> 00:12:55.669
would protect the new property owners from predatory

00:12:55.669 --> 00:12:58.149
white land speculators while they learned how

00:12:58.149 --> 00:13:01.090
to be quote unquote civilized subsistence farmers.

00:13:01.610 --> 00:13:04.049
There was also a massive legal carrot dangled

00:13:04.049 --> 00:13:06.129
in front of them regarding citizenship, wasn't

00:13:06.129 --> 00:13:08.929
there? There was. The act included a specific

00:13:08.929 --> 00:13:11.840
citizenship clause. It stated that Native Americans

00:13:11.840 --> 00:13:14.460
who accepted their land allotment and voluntarily

00:13:14.460 --> 00:13:17.379
adopted the habits of civilized life, which was

00:13:17.379 --> 00:13:19.620
explicitly defined as moving away from the tribal

00:13:19.620 --> 00:13:21.860
community and living separately, were granted

00:13:21.860 --> 00:13:24.299
United States citizenship. What's fascinating

00:13:24.299 --> 00:13:27.059
here is the sheer suffocating paternalism of

00:13:27.059 --> 00:13:29.379
the entire framework. It's astounding. The government

00:13:29.379 --> 00:13:31.840
is looking at sovereign people and saying, we

00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:35.340
are going to force you to assume a capitalist

00:13:35.340 --> 00:13:38.620
proprietary relationship with property, a concept

00:13:38.620 --> 00:13:41.000
that doesn't even exist in your language. And

00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:43.519
if you perform this role well enough, we'll let

00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:46.000
you be citizens. And they didn't even give them

00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:48.600
time to think about it. The act put them on a

00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:51.730
ticking clock. Eligible Native Americans were

00:13:51.730 --> 00:13:54.269
given exactly four years from the time the act

00:13:54.269 --> 00:13:57.450
was applied to their reservation to select their

00:13:57.450 --> 00:14:00.309
specific piece of land. Wait, what happens if

00:14:00.309 --> 00:14:02.629
someone fundamentally disagrees with this? What

00:14:02.629 --> 00:14:05.690
if a tribal member says, you know, I reject this

00:14:05.690 --> 00:14:08.610
premise. I am not picking a plot of land. I refuse.

00:14:08.929 --> 00:14:11.129
The law actually anticipated that resistance.

00:14:11.580 --> 00:14:14.080
If an eligible person refused to choose a plot

00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:16.179
or simply didn't pick one within the four -year

00:14:16.179 --> 00:14:18.799
window, the Secretary of the Interior was legally

00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:20.860
empowered to just pick the land for them. So

00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:22.840
it was completely mandatory? Utterly mandatory.

00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:24.960
There was no opting out of the Dawes Act. I'm

00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:27.080
trying to wrap my head around the logical gymnastics

00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:30.039
of this policy. The stated goal. Goal number

00:14:30.039 --> 00:14:33.399
two is to encourage individual initiative. They

00:14:33.399 --> 00:14:36.019
wanted to turn Native Americans into independent,

00:14:36.259 --> 00:14:39.139
self -reliant yeoman farmers. Right. But the

00:14:39.139 --> 00:14:41.620
government is attempting to create this independence

00:14:41.620 --> 00:14:45.720
by imposing a completely alien, mandatory, heavily

00:14:45.720 --> 00:14:48.899
supervised system on people against their will.

00:14:49.440 --> 00:14:52.080
You are literally forcing someone to be independent

00:14:52.080 --> 00:14:55.059
by making every single life choice for them under

00:14:55.059 --> 00:14:57.889
threat of federal law. It is the ultimate contradiction

00:14:57.889 --> 00:14:59.990
of colonial policy. I mean, it was a massive

00:14:59.990 --> 00:15:02.710
forced engineering project on human society.

00:15:03.389 --> 00:15:05.610
But practically speaking, before the federal

00:15:05.610 --> 00:15:08.049
government could hand out these 160 acre plots,

00:15:08.470 --> 00:15:10.690
they ran into a monumental bureaucratic wall.

00:15:11.549 --> 00:15:13.590
To hand out land to eligible individuals, you

00:15:13.590 --> 00:15:16.490
first have to legally define who exactly is eligible.

00:15:16.629 --> 00:15:18.269
You have to define what makes someone an Indian

00:15:18.269 --> 00:15:20.190
in the eyes of a federal court. Which brings

00:15:20.190 --> 00:15:22.389
us to what the sources reveal as one of the most

00:15:22.389 --> 00:15:25.230
destructive, pseudoscientific, and long -lasting

00:15:25.230 --> 00:15:27.690
aspects of the Dawes Act. The blood quantum.

00:15:28.230 --> 00:15:31.070
Exactly. The process of deciding who was Indian

00:15:31.070 --> 00:15:33.250
enough to get a piece of their own homeland.

00:15:33.549 --> 00:15:35.809
To manage this staggering logistical nightmare,

00:15:36.149 --> 00:15:37.909
Congress established the Dawes Commission in

00:15:37.909 --> 00:15:42.509
1893. Their specific monumental task was to register

00:15:42.509 --> 00:15:45.309
the members of the so -called five civilized

00:15:45.309 --> 00:15:48.559
tribes in Indian territory. And that was the

00:15:48.559 --> 00:15:51.980
Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee, and Seminole,

00:15:52.100 --> 00:15:55.139
right? Yes. Now, these tribes had initially been

00:15:55.139 --> 00:15:57.679
exempt from the 1887 Act due to prior treaties.

00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:00.159
But of course, the government eventually reneged

00:16:00.159 --> 00:16:01.899
on those promises and brought them under the

00:16:01.899 --> 00:16:04.340
allotment system as well. So you have federal

00:16:04.340 --> 00:16:06.820
agents, bureaucrats from Washington showing up

00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:09.120
in Indian territory. Paint a picture of what

00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:10.919
this actually looked like on the ground. How

00:16:10.919 --> 00:16:13.500
do they actually register people? Imagine federal

00:16:13.500 --> 00:16:16.720
agents setting up large canvas tents in the middle

00:16:16.720 --> 00:16:19.360
of these territories. You have long lines of

00:16:19.360 --> 00:16:21.820
tribal members, many of whom didn't speak English,

00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:24.600
standing with translators, facing clerks with

00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:27.580
massive leather -bound ledgers. Just a completely

00:16:27.580 --> 00:16:30.440
bureaucratic setup. Totally. And these clerks

00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:32.559
were tasked with determining the racial makeup

00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:35.360
of every single person who stepped up to the

00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:38.100
table. And to do this, they implemented a concept

00:16:38.100 --> 00:16:40.470
called blood quantum. Well, let's be crystal

00:16:40.470 --> 00:16:42.450
clear about this based on the historical record.

00:16:42.850 --> 00:16:45.549
The concept of blood quantum in the 1890s wasn't

00:16:45.549 --> 00:16:48.529
based on genetics or DNA testing. It was a completely

00:16:48.529 --> 00:16:51.289
specious, unscientific implementation. There

00:16:51.289 --> 00:16:54.210
was absolutely zero scientific method available

00:16:54.210 --> 00:16:57.629
in the 1890s for determining precise biological

00:16:57.629 --> 00:17:00.659
bloodlines. None. The commission members, these

00:17:00.659 --> 00:17:03.740
bureaucratic clerks, effectively created an arbitrary

00:17:03.740 --> 00:17:06.079
division based heavily on outward appearance,

00:17:06.819 --> 00:17:09.079
the clothes a person wore, and the perceived

00:17:09.079 --> 00:17:12.400
level of assimilation. quite literally just looking

00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:14.759
at people's faces, guessing their heritage, and

00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:16.940
writing it down as unchangeable federal law.

00:17:17.099 --> 00:17:18.940
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. And they

00:17:18.940 --> 00:17:21.579
divided people into two very distinct legal categories,

00:17:22.119 --> 00:17:24.559
full -bloods and mixed -bloods. And the consequences

00:17:24.559 --> 00:17:26.420
of those two labels were drastically different,

00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:28.480
right? I mean, they dictated a person's entire

00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:31.500
economic future. Oh, entirely. Individuals who

00:17:31.500 --> 00:17:34.960
were perceived as poorly assimilated or who appeared

00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:37.240
phenotypically indigenous and were thus labeled

00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:40.640
full -blood were legally gained incompetent to

00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:42.740
manage. their own affairs by the federal government.

00:17:42.859 --> 00:17:45.099
Wait, so if a clerk decided you looked like a

00:17:45.099 --> 00:17:47.220
full blood, you were instantly declared legally

00:17:47.220 --> 00:17:49.519
incompetent. What did that mean for your land?

00:17:49.960 --> 00:17:52.380
It meant you were given relatively small parcels

00:17:52.380 --> 00:17:55.710
of land beaded with trust patents. The government

00:17:55.710 --> 00:17:58.789
retained complete control over the land, the

00:17:58.789 --> 00:18:01.630
leasing rights, and any money it generated. And

00:18:01.630 --> 00:18:04.049
what about the people the clerks categorized

00:18:04.049 --> 00:18:07.089
as mixed -bloods? Well, those who most resembled

00:18:07.089 --> 00:18:09.630
whites or who spoke English well and were deemed

00:18:09.630 --> 00:18:13.029
assimilated were labeled mixed -bloods. The clerks

00:18:13.029 --> 00:18:15.029
assumed that because they had white heritage,

00:18:15.430 --> 00:18:17.289
they were inherently more capable of handling

00:18:17.289 --> 00:18:19.609
business. Of course they did. Right. So they

00:18:19.609 --> 00:18:21.609
were given larger, better tracts of land with

00:18:21.609 --> 00:18:24.480
patents in fee simple. Let's do another ELI 5.

00:18:25.099 --> 00:18:27.500
What does fee simple mean for someone walking

00:18:27.500 --> 00:18:30.119
out of that tent? Fee simple is the highest form

00:18:30.119 --> 00:18:32.799
of property ownership in English law. It means

00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:34.819
you own the land completely outright. You can

00:18:34.819 --> 00:18:36.900
sell it, mortgage it, leave it in your will to

00:18:36.900 --> 00:18:38.619
whoever you want. You have complete control.

00:18:38.740 --> 00:18:41.220
Sounds like a much better deal. But the catch

00:18:41.220 --> 00:18:43.859
for the mixed bloods was that to receive this

00:18:43.859 --> 00:18:46.839
fee simple land, they were forced to accept U

00:18:46.839 --> 00:18:49.279
.S. citizenship and legally relinquish their

00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:51.839
tribal status entirely. I have to stop and point

00:18:51.839 --> 00:18:54.640
out the absurdity here. If there was no scientific

00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:57.279
method to determine precise bloodlines in the

00:18:57.279 --> 00:19:00.579
1890s, wasn't this entire categorization just

00:19:00.579 --> 00:19:03.319
based on vibes and prejudice? They literally

00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:05.599
just looked at people and guessed. It was purely

00:19:05.599 --> 00:19:08.440
subjective categorization masquerading as legal

00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:11.440
science. The historical record shows that family

00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:14.160
members, full siblings, were often categorized

00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:15.920
differently just because they spoke to different

00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:17.980
clerks on different days. That is mind -blowing.

00:19:18.140 --> 00:19:20.980
And the real tragedy is that the Dawes Act legally

00:19:20.980 --> 00:19:23.240
preempted the sovereign right of Native American

00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:26.579
tribes to define themselves. For centuries, tribal

00:19:26.579 --> 00:19:29.019
belonging was cultural. It was familial. It was

00:19:29.019 --> 00:19:31.259
communal. It was about who you claimed and who

00:19:31.259 --> 00:19:34.019
claimed you. And overnight, it was reduced to

00:19:34.019 --> 00:19:36.900
a biological fraction dictated by federal bureaucrats.

00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:39.410
Exactly. What happened to the people who walked

00:19:39.410 --> 00:19:41.710
up to the tent? But the clerks decided they didn't

00:19:41.710 --> 00:19:44.009
meet the arbitrary criteria to be placed on these

00:19:44.009 --> 00:19:47.329
roles at all. They were legally detribalized.

00:19:47.750 --> 00:19:50.049
They were stripped of their American Indian identity

00:19:50.049 --> 00:19:53.950
under the law, denied any land allotment, and

00:19:53.950 --> 00:19:56.109
displaced from their homelands. Just completely

00:19:56.109 --> 00:19:59.410
erased from the system. Yes. The source material

00:19:59.410 --> 00:20:01.789
poignantly describes them as being discarded

00:20:01.789 --> 00:20:04.990
into the nebula of American otherness. And the

00:20:04.990 --> 00:20:07.109
devastating part is that this blood quantum system

00:20:07.109 --> 00:20:09.450
didn't just stop with the Dawes Act. Right. It

00:20:09.450 --> 00:20:11.690
became a long lasting federal tool. Exactly.

00:20:12.269 --> 00:20:14.069
The federal government found this spreadsheet

00:20:14.069 --> 00:20:16.990
approach to identity so administratively convenient

00:20:16.990 --> 00:20:19.869
that they continued using for decades to dispense

00:20:19.869 --> 00:20:22.630
or deny other vital resources like health care,

00:20:22.769 --> 00:20:26.230
housing and educational funding. It's quite literally

00:20:26.230 --> 00:20:29.619
identity by spreadsheet. So. The identities are

00:20:29.619 --> 00:20:32.079
arbitrarily assigned, the tribal rolls are drawn

00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:34.779
up, the ledgers are closed, and the 160 -acre

00:20:34.779 --> 00:20:37.119
parcels are handed out to the head of each recognized

00:20:37.119 --> 00:20:40.220
family. But let's do the math on the land itself.

00:20:40.319 --> 00:20:42.460
Let's do it. Earlier, we established that the

00:20:42.460 --> 00:20:45.799
tribes held roughly 155 million acres. Once you

00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:48.759
carve out 160 acres for the men, 80 for the single

00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:52.259
folks, and 40 for the kids, there is a massive,

00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:55.440
staggering amount of land left over. What happened

00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:57.539
to the rest of the reservation? This is where

00:20:57.539 --> 00:20:59.859
goal number six of the Daw's Act comes crashing

00:20:59.859 --> 00:21:02.339
down on the tribes, opening the remainder of

00:21:02.339 --> 00:21:04.890
the land to white settlers for profit. Any land

00:21:04.890 --> 00:21:06.950
within the reservation boundaries that was not

00:21:06.950 --> 00:21:09.410
allotted to a registered Native American was

00:21:09.410 --> 00:21:11.750
officially declared by the government to be surplus.

00:21:12.450 --> 00:21:15.950
Surplus! Such a clinical, sterile word for someone

00:21:15.950 --> 00:21:18.890
else's ancestral homeland. It was a legal fiction

00:21:18.890 --> 00:21:21.750
designed to justify a land grab. The moment that

00:21:21.750 --> 00:21:23.970
land was declared surplus, the federal government

00:21:23.970 --> 00:21:26.650
swooped in and quickly sold it off. Just auctioned

00:21:26.650 --> 00:21:29.289
it to the highest bidder. Pretty much. It was

00:21:29.289 --> 00:21:31.849
optioned to non -native settlers, granted to

00:21:31.849 --> 00:21:34.329
railroad companies pushing west, sold to large

00:21:34.329 --> 00:21:37.109
timber and mining corporations, or converted

00:21:37.109 --> 00:21:39.549
into federal parks and military compounds. OK,

00:21:39.630 --> 00:21:42.210
so the surplus land is immediately gone, stolen

00:21:42.210 --> 00:21:46.549
legally. But surely the allotted land, the 160

00:21:46.549 --> 00:21:49.390
-acre parcels that were locked in that 25 -year

00:21:49.390 --> 00:21:52.670
trust we talked about, surely that land was safe,

00:21:52.849 --> 00:21:54.369
right? I mean, the whole point of the trust was

00:21:54.369 --> 00:21:56.970
that it couldn't be sold. So how did they end

00:21:56.970 --> 00:21:59.670
up losing that land, too? The math isn't math

00:21:59.670 --> 00:22:02.089
-ing here. To understand how the protected land

00:22:02.089 --> 00:22:04.730
was lost, we have to look at an amendment passed

00:22:04.730 --> 00:22:07.650
in 1906 called the Burke Act, which historians

00:22:07.650 --> 00:22:10.210
often refer to as the forced patenting act. OK,

00:22:10.329 --> 00:22:12.730
what did the Burke Act do? It completely undermined

00:22:12.730 --> 00:22:15.410
the 25 -year trust protection. It gave the Secretary

00:22:15.410 --> 00:22:18.069
of the Interior the immense unilateral power

00:22:18.069 --> 00:22:20.849
to look at any Native American al -Ati and declare

00:22:20.849 --> 00:22:22.829
them competent and capable of managing their

00:22:22.829 --> 00:22:25.960
own affairs before the 25 years were up. On the

00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:27.980
surface, that sounds almost positive, getting

00:22:27.980 --> 00:22:29.940
deemed competent by the government, like you

00:22:29.940 --> 00:22:32.440
graduated to full citizenship. It was pitched

00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:35.619
as a graduation, but it was actually a meticulously

00:22:35.619 --> 00:22:39.559
designed trap for massive land transfer. When

00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:42.359
the Secretary declared Inala T competent, their

00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:44.440
land was immediately stripped of its trust status.

00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:47.180
The Alati was issued that patent and fee simple

00:22:47.180 --> 00:22:49.259
we discussed earlier. They owned it outright.

00:22:49.500 --> 00:22:51.000
But if they own it outright, they don't have

00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:53.220
to sell it. Why did this lead to them losing

00:22:53.220 --> 00:22:56.619
it? Let's ELI -5 the trap. The trap was taxes.

00:22:57.259 --> 00:22:58.980
The moment the land was taken out of federal

00:22:58.980 --> 00:23:01.359
trust, it became subject to state and local property

00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:04.359
taxes. Oh, wow. Now, remember who we were talking

00:23:04.359 --> 00:23:06.680
about. These are newly designated subsistence

00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:09.079
farmers who have been forced onto individual

00:23:09.079 --> 00:23:11.460
plots. They have very little access to credit,

00:23:11.859 --> 00:23:14.660
no access to modern agricultural markets, and

00:23:14.660 --> 00:23:17.059
they are operating in an economy that has deliberately

00:23:17.059 --> 00:23:19.380
marginalized them. So a government agent hands

00:23:19.380 --> 00:23:21.500
them a piece of paper saying, congratulations,

00:23:21.579 --> 00:23:25.099
you are competent. And a week later, the county

00:23:25.099 --> 00:23:27.720
tax assessor hands them a bill for property taxes

00:23:27.720 --> 00:23:30.880
payable in cash, cash they absolutely do not

00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:34.039
have. Precisely. And when they inevitably couldn't

00:23:34.039 --> 00:23:37.599
pay those new cash tax burdens, the local government

00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:40.150
would foreclose on the property. The land would

00:23:40.150 --> 00:23:42.230
be seized and sold to public auction to white

00:23:42.230 --> 00:23:44.829
buyers, often for pennies on the dollar. That

00:23:44.829 --> 00:23:47.829
is institutional cruelty masquerading as progress.

00:23:48.150 --> 00:23:50.150
Did the people in Washington writing these laws

00:23:50.150 --> 00:23:52.369
know this was going to happen? The Department

00:23:52.369 --> 00:23:55.230
of the Interior absolutely knew. The historical

00:23:55.230 --> 00:23:57.329
sources note that it was widely understood within

00:23:57.329 --> 00:24:00.029
the department that virtually 95 percent of all

00:24:00.029 --> 00:24:02.529
fee -patented land would eventually be lost to

00:24:02.529 --> 00:24:04.670
white buyers through tax foreclosures, fraud,

00:24:05.049 --> 00:24:07.869
or distress sales. Let's look at the final tally

00:24:07.869 --> 00:24:10.650
of this era. What was the ultimate cost of the

00:24:10.650 --> 00:24:13.029
Dawes Act and the Burke Act? The numbers are

00:24:13.029 --> 00:24:16.849
almost too large to comprehend. In 1887, before

00:24:16.849 --> 00:24:19.670
the Dawes Act was passed, Native Americans collectively

00:24:19.670 --> 00:24:24.170
owned roughly 138 million acres of land. By 1934,

00:24:24.170 --> 00:24:25.789
when the federal government finally stopped the

00:24:25.789 --> 00:24:28.349
allotment policy, Native Americans owned just

00:24:28.349 --> 00:24:30.990
48 million acres. I need everyone to hear that

00:24:30.990 --> 00:24:34.509
math clearly. Over 47 years, they lost 90 million

00:24:34.509 --> 00:24:37.819
acres of land. That is nearly two -thirds of

00:24:37.819 --> 00:24:41.000
their entire 1887 land base simply evaporating

00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:42.960
into white ownership. Yeah, it's staggering.

00:24:43.160 --> 00:24:46.480
And the human cost. As a result of this policy,

00:24:47.079 --> 00:24:50.160
90 ,000 Native Americans, which was roughly two

00:24:50.160 --> 00:24:52.099
-thirds of their entire population at the time,

00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:55.779
were made entirely hopelessly landless. They

00:24:55.779 --> 00:24:57.700
returned into refugees in their own country.

00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:00.279
And it's vital to note that this outcome was

00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:02.819
not a surprise to everyone in Washington. There

00:25:02.819 --> 00:25:05.380
were loud voices calling out exactly what this

00:25:05.380 --> 00:25:07.460
was from the very beginning. Right, like Senator

00:25:07.460 --> 00:25:10.200
Henry M. Teller of Colorado. He was an incredibly

00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:12.539
outspoken opponent of the allotment policy. He

00:25:12.539 --> 00:25:14.440
was. I read his quotes in the source material

00:25:14.440 --> 00:25:18.000
and they are chillingly accurate. In 1881, as

00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:20.279
the ideas for this act were being debated, he

00:25:20.279 --> 00:25:22.140
stated plainly that the real aim of the policy

00:25:22.140 --> 00:25:24.319
was to get at the Indian lands and open them

00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:26.579
up to settlement. He actually went on the Senate

00:25:26.579 --> 00:25:29.319
floor and called it a policy to despoil the Indians

00:25:29.319 --> 00:25:31.700
of their lands and to make them vagabonds on

00:25:31.700 --> 00:25:33.779
the face of the earth. Teller saw right through

00:25:33.779 --> 00:25:36.079
the paternalistic rhetoric. He pointed out that

00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:38.339
the provisions claiming to benefit Native Americans

00:25:38.339 --> 00:25:41.240
were just a smokescreen. He argued that if this

00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:43.539
dispossession were done purely out of naked greed,

00:25:43.720 --> 00:25:45.900
it would be bad enough, but to do it under the

00:25:45.900 --> 00:25:48.480
self -righteous guise of humanity and civilization

00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:52.140
made it infinitely worse. And his warnings were

00:25:52.140 --> 00:25:55.480
completely validated by later historians. Angie

00:25:55.480 --> 00:25:58.519
Debo, a pioneering historian, wrote a landmark

00:25:58.519 --> 00:26:02.160
explosive book in 1940 called And Still the Waters

00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:05.079
Run. An incredibly important book. It is an incredibly

00:26:05.079 --> 00:26:08.160
detailed, exhaustive account of the systematic

00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:11.579
manipulation, the rampant corruption, and the

00:26:11.579 --> 00:26:14.220
sheer moral depravity used by white administrators,

00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:16.960
lawyers, and businessmen to deprive the five

00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:19.339
civilized tribes of their resources. The evidence

00:26:19.339 --> 00:26:22.180
of fraud was overwhelming. Even Henry Dawes himself,

00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:24.559
the architect of the Act, the man who believed

00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:27.500
he was saving Native Americans, seemed to recognize

00:26:27.500 --> 00:26:30.420
the monster he had unleashed. Just three years

00:26:30.420 --> 00:26:34.019
after the Act passed in 1890, he cynically remarked,

00:26:34.019 --> 00:26:36.200
I never knew a white man to get his foot on an

00:26:36.200 --> 00:26:38.920
Indian's land whoever took it off. It's an unbelievable

00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:42.099
systemic transfer of generational wealth. But

00:26:42.099 --> 00:26:44.279
the Dawes Act wasn't just a massive real estate

00:26:44.279 --> 00:26:46.660
transaction, was it? We talked earlier about

00:26:46.660 --> 00:26:50.259
destroying the tribal unit. The Act was simultaneously

00:26:50.259 --> 00:26:53.579
a psychological and cultural weapon designed

00:26:53.579 --> 00:26:57.000
to reach into the home and fundamentally restructure

00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:59.980
the Native American family. That is a crucial

00:26:59.980 --> 00:27:03.000
layer to this history. The Office of Indian Affairs

00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:05.519
wasn't just trying to redraw property lines on

00:27:05.519 --> 00:27:08.039
a map. They were actively trying to change human

00:27:08.039 --> 00:27:11.059
behavior and psychology. How so? Well, the Dawes

00:27:11.059 --> 00:27:13.559
Act actually included specific funding provisions

00:27:13.559 --> 00:27:15.960
to instruct Native Americans in Euro -American

00:27:15.960 --> 00:27:18.369
patterns of thought. This money was funneled

00:27:18.369 --> 00:27:20.650
into the Indian service schools, including the

00:27:20.650 --> 00:27:22.529
notorious boarding schools. They didn't just

00:27:22.529 --> 00:27:26.009
teach English and math. They literally outlawed

00:27:26.009 --> 00:27:28.869
Native American cultural practices. They established

00:27:28.869 --> 00:27:31.789
a draconian code of Indian offenses that regulated

00:27:31.789 --> 00:27:34.529
individual behavior, religious practices, and

00:27:34.529 --> 00:27:36.750
ceremonies according to strict Euro -American

00:27:36.750 --> 00:27:38.950
Christian norms. Right. And if you violated these

00:27:38.950 --> 00:27:41.029
rules, you were tried in special courts of Indian

00:27:41.029 --> 00:27:42.730
offenses set up directly on the reservations.

00:27:43.029 --> 00:27:45.369
They criminalized the culture. They did. And

00:27:45.369 --> 00:27:47.829
if we look closely at the sociological impact,

00:27:48.289 --> 00:27:51.130
an incredibly important yet often overlooked

00:27:51.130 --> 00:27:54.750
objective of the Dawes Act was to entirely restructure

00:27:54.750 --> 00:27:57.089
indigenous gender roles. Here's where it gets

00:27:57.089 --> 00:27:59.869
really interesting and where the sheer arrogance

00:27:59.869 --> 00:28:03.109
of the colonial mindset is so starkly exposed.

00:28:03.529 --> 00:28:06.470
In many indigenous tribes, particularly agricultural

00:28:06.470 --> 00:28:10.289
ones, women performed what white Victorian settlers

00:28:10.289 --> 00:28:13.670
considered to be strictly male tasks. Yes, like

00:28:13.670 --> 00:28:15.769
heavy farm. farming, home building, construction,

00:28:15.950 --> 00:28:18.450
and supply gathering. Right. And within the tribal

00:28:18.450 --> 00:28:20.970
structure, these weren't menial tasks. These

00:28:20.970 --> 00:28:23.410
gendered roles accorded indigenous women high

00:28:23.410 --> 00:28:26.289
esteem, economic power, and significant social

00:28:26.289 --> 00:28:28.250
status within the community. They controlled

00:28:28.250 --> 00:28:30.170
the food supply. They owned the homes they built.

00:28:30.450 --> 00:28:32.750
They were the primary providers and the economic

00:28:32.750 --> 00:28:34.910
bedrock of the tribe. But when the white settlers,

00:28:35.109 --> 00:28:37.089
the federal agents, and the East Coast reformers

00:28:37.089 --> 00:28:40.009
arrived and saw this, they completely misinterpreted

00:28:40.009 --> 00:28:42.230
it through their own patriarchal lens. They looked

00:28:42.230 --> 00:28:44.849
at these powerful working women and judged their

00:28:44.849 --> 00:28:48.109
labor as low status. The source material states

00:28:48.109 --> 00:28:51.490
they saw this as a sign of indigenous women's,

00:28:51.490 --> 00:28:54.289
quote unquote, disempowerment and drudgery. You

00:28:54.289 --> 00:28:57.029
have to understand the evolutionary perspective

00:28:57.029 --> 00:29:00.589
of the late 19th century white reformer. In their

00:29:00.589 --> 00:29:03.509
Victorian worldview, the pinnacle of civilization

00:29:03.509 --> 00:29:06.009
was a woman sitting indoors, performing light

00:29:06.009 --> 00:29:08.730
domestic duties entirely dependent on a male

00:29:08.730 --> 00:29:11.150
wage earner. So they viewed indigenous women

00:29:11.150 --> 00:29:13.990
doing agricultural or construction work not as

00:29:13.990 --> 00:29:16.359
empowerment, but as a primitive corruption of

00:29:16.359 --> 00:29:19.119
natural gender roles. They saw it as an absolute

00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:21.859
impediment to societal progress. I am continually

00:29:21.859 --> 00:29:23.819
amazed by the hubris. They basically looked at

00:29:23.819 --> 00:29:26.000
a society where women had economic independence,

00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:28.200
property rights, and high social standing and

00:29:28.200 --> 00:29:30.319
said, we are going to rescue these poor women

00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:32.440
by taking away the very work that gives them

00:29:32.440 --> 00:29:34.599
power and making them completely dependent on

00:29:34.599 --> 00:29:37.559
men. That is exactly what they did. They used

00:29:37.559 --> 00:29:40.180
environmental and property changes to force massive

00:29:40.180 --> 00:29:43.359
social change. The legislators aggressively promoted

00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:46.279
Christian marriage They forced extended communal

00:29:46.279 --> 00:29:49.039
families to break apart and regroup under strict

00:29:49.039 --> 00:29:52.019
nuclear households led by a designated male head.

00:29:52.660 --> 00:29:55.319
They often enforced this by literally renaming

00:29:55.319 --> 00:29:57.460
people on the Dawes Rolls, didn't they? Giving

00:29:57.460 --> 00:29:59.839
them English surnames derived from the husband

00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:02.839
or father. Yep. They erased matrilineal naming

00:30:02.839 --> 00:30:05.700
systems overnight. Wow. They then trained the

00:30:05.700 --> 00:30:08.380
men in wage -earning occupations or heavy subsistence

00:30:08.380 --> 00:30:11.259
farming, giving the men the plows and the seeds.

00:30:11.819 --> 00:30:13.920
Meanwhile, they actively pressured the women

00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:16.480
to step back from the fields and retreat into

00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:19.079
domestic, indoor activities, sewing, cleaning,

00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:22.339
cooking, to merely support the men. So the explicit

00:30:22.339 --> 00:30:24.799
goal was to create a system of economic dependencies

00:30:24.799 --> 00:30:27.640
strictly within a small, male -dominated nuclear

00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:30.279
unit. Precisely. So under the banner of civilization

00:30:30.279 --> 00:30:33.420
and progress, they intentionally dismantled a

00:30:33.420 --> 00:30:36.160
functioning system of female empowerment and

00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:38.799
replaced it with forced economic domesticity.

00:30:39.730 --> 00:30:42.490
It's profound how deeply this piece of real estate

00:30:42.490 --> 00:30:45.250
legislation reached into the living rooms, the

00:30:45.250 --> 00:30:47.930
marriages, and the daily lives of the people

00:30:47.930 --> 00:30:50.569
it targeted. It was a totalizing, inescapable

00:30:50.569 --> 00:30:53.369
policy. But as destructive as all of this was,

00:30:53.890 --> 00:30:56.450
the sale of the surplus land, the attack on culture,

00:30:56.990 --> 00:30:59.569
the rewriting of gender roles, we still have

00:30:59.569 --> 00:31:02.269
to address the elephant in the room. Right. What

00:31:02.269 --> 00:31:05.200
happened to the land that was kept? the 48 million

00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:07.400
acres that somehow survived the Burke Act and

00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:09.380
the tax foreclosures and remained in late of

00:31:09.380 --> 00:31:11.960
American hands. What happened to those specific

00:31:11.960 --> 00:31:14.720
allotted parcels over the next century? And this

00:31:14.720 --> 00:31:17.759
brings us to the core issue, the absolute mechanical

00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:21.359
heart of today's deep dive, the modern administrative

00:31:21.359 --> 00:31:24.259
nightmare, the phenomenon known as fractionation.

00:31:24.359 --> 00:31:26.579
Okay, let's unpack this concept clearly because

00:31:26.579 --> 00:31:28.500
it is the engine of the bureaucratic black hole

00:31:28.500 --> 00:31:30.740
we mentioned at the very start of the show. Explain

00:31:30.740 --> 00:31:32.900
the mechanics of fractionation to me like I'm

00:31:32.900 --> 00:31:34.839
a first -year law student trying to understand

00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:37.740
trusts. To understand fractionation, you just

00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:40.000
have to follow the basic mathematical rules of

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:42.059
inheritance applied to a trust property over

00:31:42.059 --> 00:31:44.579
multiple generations. Let's start at the beginning.

00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:47.779
An original a la T Let's call them Generation

00:31:47.779 --> 00:31:52.680
1, receives his 160 -acre parcel in 1890. It

00:31:52.680 --> 00:31:55.140
is held in federal trust. Okay, got it. When

00:31:55.140 --> 00:31:57.460
Generation 1 dies, the federal government does

00:31:57.460 --> 00:32:00.640
not physically divide the 160 acres into smaller

00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:03.460
fenced -off plots for his children. Because the

00:32:03.460 --> 00:32:05.339
land is held in trust, the physical boundaries

00:32:05.339 --> 00:32:07.819
remain completely intact. Correct. The physical

00:32:07.819 --> 00:32:10.740
land remains whole. Instead, the heirs receive

00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:13.740
equal undivided interest in the entire parcel.

00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:16.140
Undivided is the absolute keyword there. Let's

00:32:16.140 --> 00:32:18.319
make this concrete. If I inherit property with

00:32:18.319 --> 00:32:20.420
my sister, I don't get the north 80 acres and

00:32:20.420 --> 00:32:22.660
she gets the south 80 acres. We don't get separate

00:32:22.660 --> 00:32:25.779
deeds. No. You both own a 50 % undivided interest

00:32:25.779 --> 00:32:28.859
in the whole 160 acres. You own 50 % of every

00:32:28.859 --> 00:32:31.140
blade of grass and she owns 50 % of every blade

00:32:31.140 --> 00:32:33.480
of grass. Okay, that makes sense for one generation.

00:32:33.519 --> 00:32:35.440
But then I have four kids and my sister has four

00:32:35.440 --> 00:32:38.220
kids. When we both eventually pass away, our

00:32:38.220 --> 00:32:41.329
children inherit our shares. Instead of two owners,

00:32:41.769 --> 00:32:45.170
those eight kids own an equal, undivided 12 .5

00:32:45.170 --> 00:32:49.130
% interest in the exact same 160 acres. And when

00:32:49.130 --> 00:32:52.109
those eight heirs die, their shares divide again

00:32:52.109 --> 00:32:54.549
among their children. And because Native American

00:32:54.549 --> 00:32:57.450
families, like any families, grow, marry, and

00:32:57.450 --> 00:33:00.230
branch out, this fractionated interest doesn't

00:33:00.230 --> 00:33:03.049
just grow linearly. It expands exponentially

00:33:03.049 --> 00:33:06.039
with each passing generation. And the terrifying

00:33:06.039 --> 00:33:07.980
part is this hasn't been happening for just two

00:33:07.980 --> 00:33:10.680
or three generations. This mathematical splitting

00:33:10.680 --> 00:33:13.200
has been happening continuously, generation after

00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:16.619
generation, for over 130 years since the Dawes

00:33:16.619 --> 00:33:18.880
Act was passed. If we connect this to the bigger

00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:20.960
picture, the scale of this math problem today

00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:23.099
is genuinely staggering. Let's look at the data.

00:33:23.480 --> 00:33:26.059
In 2004, a man named Ross Swimmer, who was serving

00:33:26.059 --> 00:33:28.259
as the Special Trustee for American Indians at

00:33:28.259 --> 00:33:30.660
the Department of the Interior, testified before

00:33:30.660 --> 00:33:32.880
Congress about this exact crisis. What did he

00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:36.009
tell them? He presented the math. He stated that

00:33:36.009 --> 00:33:38.670
there were approximately four million individual

00:33:38.670 --> 00:33:41.829
owner interests spread across just 10 million

00:33:41.829 --> 00:33:44.910
acres of individually owned trust lands. Wait,

00:33:45.109 --> 00:33:48.369
four million distinct legally binding owner interests

00:33:48.369 --> 00:33:51.390
on just 10 million acres? That's an average of

00:33:51.390 --> 00:33:53.630
one owner for every two and a half acres, but

00:33:53.630 --> 00:33:56.190
all mixed together in a giant legal suit. And

00:33:56.190 --> 00:33:59.259
he warned Congress. that unless a radically aggressive

00:33:59.259 --> 00:34:01.400
approach was taken to consolidate this land,

00:34:02.039 --> 00:34:04.039
those four million interests were mathematically

00:34:04.039 --> 00:34:07.160
projected to expand to 11 million interests by

00:34:07.160 --> 00:34:09.719
the year 2030. Think about our community garden

00:34:09.719 --> 00:34:11.960
analogy from earlier and let's update it for

00:34:11.960 --> 00:34:14.400
the modern era to understand why this is so paralyzing.

00:34:14.820 --> 00:34:17.320
Let's say you inherit a nice vacation cabin in

00:34:17.320 --> 00:34:19.880
the woods with your four siblings. You all own

00:34:19.880 --> 00:34:22.400
a 20 percent undivided interest. It's a little

00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:24.380
annoying to schedule who gets it on Labor Day,

00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:26.420
but you manage. Right, 20 percent is manageable.

00:34:26.619 --> 00:34:28.980
Now imagine your kids inherited, and their kids

00:34:28.980 --> 00:34:31.820
and their kids. Three generations later, a hundred

00:34:31.820 --> 00:34:34.079
people, most of whom have never even met each

00:34:34.079 --> 00:34:36.820
other, own an undivided interest in this one

00:34:36.820 --> 00:34:39.690
cabin. Now the roof starts leaking. Exactly.

00:34:39.809 --> 00:34:42.409
The roof leaks and you want to fix it. Or maybe

00:34:42.409 --> 00:34:44.389
a logging company wants to pay you to harvest

00:34:44.389 --> 00:34:47.809
some timber on the land. But legally, because

00:34:47.809 --> 00:34:49.809
it's an undivided interest in a federal trust,

00:34:49.889 --> 00:34:52.730
you can't just fix it yourself. You need a legally

00:34:52.730 --> 00:34:55.269
binding consensus. Signatures from a hundred

00:34:55.269 --> 00:34:57.789
different owners scattered across all 50 states

00:34:57.789 --> 00:35:00.789
just to authorize a lease, a repair or a sale.

00:35:01.030 --> 00:35:03.190
And that is exactly what happens on the reservations.

00:35:03.889 --> 00:35:07.789
The land becomes completely utterly administratively

00:35:07.789 --> 00:35:10.630
paralyzed. In fact, real estate appraisal studies

00:35:10.630 --> 00:35:13.210
cited in the sources suggest that once a single

00:35:13.210 --> 00:35:16.329
tract of land has between 10 and 20 individual

00:35:16.329 --> 00:35:18.969
owners, the commercial value of that tract effectively

00:35:18.969 --> 00:35:22.349
drops to zero. Drops to zero because the transaction

00:35:22.349 --> 00:35:25.250
costs, finding everyone, getting a notary, getting

00:35:25.250 --> 00:35:27.670
them to agree, processing the federal paperwork,

00:35:28.329 --> 00:35:30.570
vastly exceed whatever money the land could possibly

00:35:30.570 --> 00:35:32.530
generate. It becomes literally impossible to

00:35:32.530 --> 00:35:34.429
lease the land for agriculture. to build a home

00:35:34.429 --> 00:35:37.230
on it or to develop it for commercial use. The

00:35:37.230 --> 00:35:39.710
land becomes dead capital. It's its empty growing

00:35:39.710 --> 00:35:41.730
weeds while the people who theoretically own

00:35:41.730 --> 00:35:44.250
it live in poverty nearby. To truly understand

00:35:44.250 --> 00:35:46.889
how paralyzing this is, how deeply it breaks

00:35:46.889 --> 00:35:49.409
the administrative system, we need to stop speaking

00:35:49.409 --> 00:35:52.469
in abstracts. We need to look at a specific real

00:35:52.469 --> 00:35:55.250
world example from the sources. Let's look deeply

00:35:55.250 --> 00:35:59.969
into Tract 1305. Oh, Tract 1305. This is perhaps

00:35:59.969 --> 00:36:02.150
the most famous piece of fractionated land in

00:36:02.150 --> 00:36:05.380
legal history. It was a specific 40 -acre parcel

00:36:05.380 --> 00:36:08.340
of allotted land located on the Pine Ridge Reservation

00:36:08.340 --> 00:36:10.980
in South Dakota. It was highlighted as the prime

00:36:10.980 --> 00:36:13.940
example in a pivotal 1987 Supreme Court case,

00:36:14.480 --> 00:36:16.440
Hodel v. Irving. And the data on this single

00:36:16.440 --> 00:36:18.900
tract is the perfect, terrifying illustration

00:36:18.900 --> 00:36:21.340
of how fractionation destroys value, isn't it?

00:36:21.559 --> 00:36:23.079
It really is. Let's walk through the numbers.

00:36:23.480 --> 00:36:26.179
Lay out the exact reality of tract 1305 as it

00:36:26.179 --> 00:36:28.199
stood in 1987 during the Supreme Court case.

00:36:28.300 --> 00:36:30.579
Okay, hit me with the numbers. In 1987, this

00:36:30.579 --> 00:36:32.940
40 -acre tract was appraised at a value of $8

00:36:32.940 --> 00:36:35.820
,000. It was being leased out and produced a

00:36:35.820 --> 00:36:38.980
total of $1 ,080 a year in rental income. But

00:36:38.980 --> 00:36:40.900
because of continuous fractionation since the

00:36:40.900 --> 00:36:44.500
allotment era, that 40 acres had 439 separate

00:36:44.500 --> 00:36:47.699
legal owners. 439 owners for a plot of land the

00:36:47.699 --> 00:36:50.800
size of a medium shopping center. Yes. And let's

00:36:50.800 --> 00:36:54.119
look at how that $1 ,080 of income was divided

00:36:54.119 --> 00:36:57.780
among those 439 people. One -third of those owners

00:36:57.780 --> 00:37:00.039
received a rental check for less than five cents

00:37:00.039 --> 00:37:02.780
for the entire year. Five cents for a whole year?

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:04.900
Two -thirds of the owners received less than

00:37:04.900 --> 00:37:07.260
a single dollar. The absolute largest interest

00:37:07.260 --> 00:37:10.059
holder, the person with the biggest chunk, received

00:37:10.059 --> 00:37:14.000
just $82 .85 a year. I'm trying to imagine the

00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:16.880
math the accountants had to do. It required supercomputers.

00:37:17.079 --> 00:37:19.440
To calculate the fractional interest accurately,

00:37:19.579 --> 00:37:21.519
the federal government had to use a common denominator

00:37:21.519 --> 00:37:25.420
of over 3 .3 trillion. Trillion. With a T, they

00:37:25.420 --> 00:37:28.940
are slicing 40 acres into 3 .3 trillion hypothetical

00:37:28.940 --> 00:37:31.280
pieces to figure out who gets a nickel. And this

00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:33.139
brings us back to the hook of our deep dive.

00:37:33.519 --> 00:37:35.760
The smallest heir of track 1305, the person with

00:37:35.760 --> 00:37:38.300
the most microscopic fraction of ownership, received

00:37:38.300 --> 00:37:40.480
a fractional payout so small that it would take

00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:44.119
exactly 177 years of accumulated rent to equal

00:37:44.119 --> 00:37:47.469
one single penny. It is beyond absurd. It's a

00:37:47.469 --> 00:37:49.849
comedy of bureaucratic errors. And let's play

00:37:49.849 --> 00:37:52.670
this out. If they somehow miraculously got all

00:37:52.670 --> 00:37:55.750
439 people to sign a piece of paper agreeing

00:37:55.750 --> 00:37:58.769
to sell the land outright for its $8 ,000 appraised

00:37:58.769 --> 00:38:01.809
value, what would that smallest heir get from

00:38:01.809 --> 00:38:04.550
the sale? If the land were sold for $8 ,000,

00:38:05.010 --> 00:38:07.050
that smallest heir would be legally entitled

00:38:07.050 --> 00:38:09.489
to roughly four hundredths of a single cent.

00:38:09.829 --> 00:38:11.730
But here is the thing that truly breaks my brain.

00:38:11.949 --> 00:38:14.590
Someone has to do all this math. This isn't just

00:38:14.590 --> 00:38:16.949
an abstract theoretical problem on a chalkboard.

00:38:17.190 --> 00:38:19.070
Someone sitting in a government office has to

00:38:19.070 --> 00:38:22.170
track all 439 of these people, update their addresses

00:38:22.170 --> 00:38:24.469
when they move, legally process their fractions

00:38:24.469 --> 00:38:26.909
of a cent, print the ledgers, and mail the notices.

00:38:27.590 --> 00:38:30.469
That monumental Sisyphean task falls entirely

00:38:30.469 --> 00:38:32.690
on the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the BIA, which

00:38:32.690 --> 00:38:34.789
is part of the Department of the Interior. And

00:38:34.789 --> 00:38:37.670
in 1987, during the court case, the administrative

00:38:37.670 --> 00:38:40.170
cost to the BIA, the taxpayer money spent paying

00:38:40.170 --> 00:38:42.380
clerks, printing paper, and mailing envelopes

00:38:42.380 --> 00:38:44.340
just to handle the yearly paperwork for this

00:38:44.340 --> 00:38:47.000
one single 40 acre tract of land was estimated

00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:51.050
at $17 ,560 a year. Wait. Stop. Let me make sure

00:38:51.050 --> 00:38:53.769
I'm hearing you correctly. The land itself only

00:38:53.769 --> 00:38:57.190
produced $1 ,080 a year in actual income. But

00:38:57.190 --> 00:39:01.750
it cost the government $17 ,560 a year just to

00:39:01.750 --> 00:39:04.949
manage the ledger dividing up that $1 ,080. Yes.

00:39:05.190 --> 00:39:07.769
They were spending 17 times more money to manage

00:39:07.769 --> 00:39:10.429
the land than the land actually produced. And

00:39:10.429 --> 00:39:13.090
the horrifying part is it only gets worse. The

00:39:13.090 --> 00:39:15.269
sources track the history of this exact same

00:39:15.269 --> 00:39:17.809
piece of property, track 1305, forward to the

00:39:17.809 --> 00:39:20.599
year 2003. OK. What happened? over those 16 years.

00:39:20.760 --> 00:39:23.179
By 2003, the track's value had increased to $22

00:39:23.179 --> 00:39:26.739
,000 and it produced $2 ,000 in annual income.

00:39:27.340 --> 00:39:29.760
But the older generation had died passing their

00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:31.780
shares to their children. The number of owners

00:39:31.780 --> 00:39:35.340
had grown from 439 to 505. The common denominator

00:39:35.340 --> 00:39:37.099
required to calculate the shares had ballooned

00:39:37.099 --> 00:39:40.199
from 3 .3 trillion to 220 trillion. The exact

00:39:40.199 --> 00:39:43.420
denominator was 220 billion, 670 billion, 49

00:39:43.420 --> 00:39:45.460
million, 600 thousand. And the administrative

00:39:45.460 --> 00:39:47.739
cost to the government in 2003? The administrative

00:39:47.739 --> 00:39:50.989
cost to taxpayers balloon to $42 ,800 a year

00:39:50.989 --> 00:39:53.269
for that single $2 ,000 a year piece of land.

00:39:53.510 --> 00:39:56.869
This is an amazing tragic paradox. Let's think

00:39:56.869 --> 00:39:59.639
back to the beginning of the deep dive. One of

00:39:59.639 --> 00:40:02.800
the original stated six goals of the Dawes Act,

00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:05.679
written by Senator Dawes himself, was to, quote,

00:40:06.079 --> 00:40:08.539
reduce the cost of Native administration. Yeah,

00:40:08.579 --> 00:40:10.760
that really backfired. They honestly thought

00:40:10.760 --> 00:40:13.260
that breaking up the tribes and handing out individual

00:40:13.260 --> 00:40:15.539
property would make things cheaper and easier

00:40:15.539 --> 00:40:18.780
for the federal budget. Instead, they birthed

00:40:18.780 --> 00:40:21.699
an eternal, bureaucratic black hole where the

00:40:21.699 --> 00:40:24.280
government spends infinitely more money processing

00:40:24.280 --> 00:40:26.860
the paperwork than the land actually produces.

00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:28.940
And the most frustrating part is is that the

00:40:28.940 --> 00:40:31.139
Department of the Interior has no choice but

00:40:31.139 --> 00:40:33.619
to manage it. They are trapped in a prison of

00:40:33.619 --> 00:40:36.219
their own making. Unlike most private trusts,

00:40:36.340 --> 00:40:38.599
where a bank can simply refuse to manage an account

00:40:38.599 --> 00:40:41.059
that holds less than $100 because it isn't profitable,

00:40:41.480 --> 00:40:43.340
the federal government bears the entire legal

00:40:43.340 --> 00:40:45.599
and financial cost of administering the Indian

00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:48.500
Trust. They have no commercial incentive or legal

00:40:48.500 --> 00:40:52.260
ability to disclose small accounts. So what happens

00:40:52.260 --> 00:40:54.199
when someone who owns an interest that generates

00:40:54.199 --> 00:40:56.780
two cents a year dies? The BIA has to process

00:40:56.780 --> 00:41:00.030
that death, right? Yes. Under current federal

00:41:00.030 --> 00:41:02.730
regulations, legal probates need to be conducted

00:41:02.730 --> 00:41:05.190
for every individual account with trust assets

00:41:05.190 --> 00:41:07.630
when the owner dies, regardless of the value.

00:41:08.110 --> 00:41:10.190
Even if the account balance is literally between

00:41:10.190 --> 00:41:12.670
one cent and one dollar, a federal judge has

00:41:12.670 --> 00:41:16.119
to probate it. Let me - ELI -5, the probate process,

00:41:16.260 --> 00:41:18.619
so people understand how insane this is. A probate

00:41:18.619 --> 00:41:21.239
means lawyers, judges, gathering death certificates,

00:41:21.460 --> 00:41:23.320
tracking down heirs, holding hearings, and issuing

00:41:23.320 --> 00:41:26.460
legal orders. They have to do a full legal probate

00:41:26.460 --> 00:41:28.659
for an account that holds 15 cents. They do.

00:41:28.940 --> 00:41:31.400
A streamlined, bare -bones probate process costs

00:41:31.400 --> 00:41:34.599
the government a minimum of $500 in administrative

00:41:34.599 --> 00:41:37.349
overhead. So, the government reported to Congress

00:41:37.349 --> 00:41:40.510
that to probate the roughly $5 ,700 total held

00:41:40.510 --> 00:41:42.530
across all these tiny fractional accounts in

00:41:42.530 --> 00:41:44.510
the entire system, it would cost the taxpayers

00:41:44.510 --> 00:41:47.690
almost $10 million in administrative fees. Spending

00:41:47.690 --> 00:41:51.469
$10 million to legally distribute $5 ,000, it

00:41:51.469 --> 00:41:54.309
is a system completely irreversibly divorced

00:41:54.309 --> 00:41:59.190
from logic, economics, or reality. So, how has

00:41:59.190 --> 00:42:01.150
the government tried to clean up a mess that

00:42:01.150 --> 00:42:03.690
has been spiraling so disastrously out of control

00:42:03.690 --> 00:42:06.909
for over a century? Has there been any accountability?

00:42:07.230 --> 00:42:10.409
Did anyone try to stop it before it got to 220

00:42:10.409 --> 00:42:13.070
trillion denominators? The alarm bells were actually

00:42:13.070 --> 00:42:16.250
rung fairly early on. In 1928, there was a major

00:42:16.250 --> 00:42:18.329
comprehensive study commissioned by the Secretary

00:42:18.329 --> 00:42:21.050
of the Interior called the Miriam Report. It

00:42:21.050 --> 00:42:23.489
extensively documented the massive fraud, the

00:42:23.489 --> 00:42:25.730
crushing poverty, and the misappropriation of

00:42:25.730 --> 00:42:28.619
the allotment era. Oh, good. And buried in that

00:42:28.619 --> 00:42:30.619
report it revealed that the government already

00:42:30.619 --> 00:42:33.610
knew the math was failing. As early as 1922,

00:42:34.030 --> 00:42:35.849
an audit by the General Accounting Office found

00:42:35.849 --> 00:42:38.190
that for just 80 ,000 discrete Native American

00:42:38.190 --> 00:42:40.489
owners, the government was already managing over

00:42:40.489 --> 00:42:42.929
one million fractional ownership records. So

00:42:42.929 --> 00:42:45.710
they knew in the 1920s that the exponential math

00:42:45.710 --> 00:42:49.070
was broken. They absolutely knew. The GAO noted

00:42:49.070 --> 00:42:51.130
back then that if the land were physically divided

00:42:51.130 --> 00:42:53.369
by these fractional interests rather than held

00:42:53.369 --> 00:42:56.150
undivided, many owners would receive less than

00:42:56.150 --> 00:42:58.469
one square foot of ground. A square foot? You

00:42:58.469 --> 00:43:00.389
couldn't even stand on your own property with

00:43:00.389 --> 00:43:02.929
two feet. Did Congress do anything about the

00:43:02.929 --> 00:43:06.829
Miriam Report? Eventually, yes. During the Great

00:43:06.829 --> 00:43:09.090
Depression, the Roosevelt administration passed

00:43:09.090 --> 00:43:12.150
the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which

00:43:12.150 --> 00:43:14.989
is often called the Indian New Deal. This act

00:43:14.989 --> 00:43:17.909
finally legally stopped the allotment process.

00:43:18.449 --> 00:43:20.550
It formally prohibited any further carving up

00:43:20.550 --> 00:43:22.510
of the reservations. But let me guess, it was

00:43:22.510 --> 00:43:25.530
basically shutting the barn door after the horses

00:43:25.530 --> 00:43:28.230
had already run away, been sold, and died. Exactly.

00:43:28.269 --> 00:43:30.389
It stopped new allotments from being created.

00:43:30.650 --> 00:43:33.250
But due to heavy lobbying and opposition from

00:43:33.250 --> 00:43:35.250
white ranchers and corporate interests who were

00:43:35.250 --> 00:43:38.110
making a fortune leasing these paralyzed, fractionated

00:43:38.110 --> 00:43:40.630
lands for pennies on the dollar because the owners

00:43:40.630 --> 00:43:43.289
couldn't organize to demand fair prices, the

00:43:43.289 --> 00:43:46.110
final version of the 1934 Act was gutted. So

00:43:46.110 --> 00:43:48.070
it didn't fix the fractionation problem at all?

00:43:48.449 --> 00:43:51.369
No. It failed to meaningfully address the land

00:43:51.369 --> 00:43:53.730
consolidation and fractionation that had already

00:43:53.730 --> 00:43:56.130
happened. It left the existing trusts in place.

00:43:56.630 --> 00:43:59.150
It didn't fix the math. Which leaves us with

00:43:59.150 --> 00:44:02.630
the staggering multi -billion dollar bureaucracy

00:44:02.630 --> 00:44:05.809
of today. Let's look at the BIA's massive trust

00:44:05.809 --> 00:44:08.429
management responsibilities right now. How big

00:44:08.429 --> 00:44:11.010
is this ledger today? Today, the Interior Department

00:44:11.010 --> 00:44:13.269
is involved in the active management of roughly

00:44:13.269 --> 00:44:16.789
100 ,000 leases on trust land, encompassing about

00:44:16.789 --> 00:44:19.829
56 million acres. They collect and distribute

00:44:19.829 --> 00:44:23.510
about $226 million per year for approximately

00:44:23.510 --> 00:44:27.110
230 ,000 individual Indian money accounts, and

00:44:27.110 --> 00:44:29.539
they manage billions in tribal funds. And it

00:44:29.539 --> 00:44:31.519
doesn't take a genius to realize that when you

00:44:31.519 --> 00:44:33.940
have a chronically underfunded government accounting

00:44:33.940 --> 00:44:35.940
system trying to manage hundreds of thousands

00:44:35.940 --> 00:44:38.199
of accounts using fractions of pennies based

00:44:38.199 --> 00:44:40.679
on 130 -year -old ledgers, things are going to

00:44:40.679 --> 00:44:43.300
go wrong. Massively, criminally wrong. The BIA

00:44:43.300 --> 00:44:45.420
has alleged improper management, missing ledgers,

00:44:45.679 --> 00:44:47.860
and outright loss of this trust fund money resulted

00:44:47.860 --> 00:44:49.780
in decades of bitter litigation. This is the

00:44:49.780 --> 00:44:53.500
Cobel case, right? Yes. The most famous and consequential

00:44:53.500 --> 00:44:56.820
is the class -action lawsuit Cobell v. Kempthorne,

00:44:57.039 --> 00:44:59.739
spearheaded by Eloise Cobell, a Blackfeet Nation

00:44:59.739 --> 00:45:03.159
banker. That case was eventually settled in 2009.

00:45:03.309 --> 00:45:07.590
The federal government had to pay out $3 .4 billion

00:45:07.590 --> 00:45:10.409
to Native American account holders because the

00:45:10.409 --> 00:45:12.469
government simply could not produce the paperwork

00:45:12.469 --> 00:45:14.969
or properly account for the revenues they were

00:45:14.969 --> 00:45:16.969
supposed to be holding in trust. They literally

00:45:16.969 --> 00:45:20.650
lost track of the fractions. $3 .4 billion. And

00:45:20.650 --> 00:45:22.309
that's just the financial accounting of it. That's

00:45:22.309 --> 00:45:25.010
just the ledgers and the lawsuits. But I want

00:45:25.010 --> 00:45:26.789
to pull back from the math for a second and look

00:45:26.789 --> 00:45:28.929
at the actual human beings involved. That's the

00:45:28.929 --> 00:45:31.230
most important part. You take away 90 million

00:45:31.230 --> 00:45:34.030
acres of land. You break up the communal family

00:45:34.030 --> 00:45:36.730
structure. You force people into a cash economy

00:45:36.730 --> 00:45:39.710
with no cash. You throw generations into deep

00:45:39.710 --> 00:45:41.670
poverty while they technically own land they

00:45:41.670 --> 00:45:45.570
can't touch. That kind of sustained multigenerational

00:45:45.570 --> 00:45:48.469
trauma has to leave deep physical scars on a

00:45:48.469 --> 00:45:51.329
population. It does. And the data bears that

00:45:51.329 --> 00:45:54.519
out in horrifying detail. Recent literature and

00:45:54.519 --> 00:45:56.619
demographic studies have found empirical evidence

00:45:56.619 --> 00:45:59.519
of profound health impacts stemming directly

00:45:59.519 --> 00:46:02.460
from the allotment policy. The data shows that

00:46:02.460 --> 00:46:04.659
for the communities subjected to the Dawes Act,

00:46:05.119 --> 00:46:07.619
the policy led to sharp increases in child mortality.

00:46:07.849 --> 00:46:11.469
And most staggeringly, it resulted in a 20 %

00:46:11.469 --> 00:46:13.469
decrease in life expectancy for the affected

00:46:13.469 --> 00:46:15.750
native communities compared to non -allotted

00:46:15.750 --> 00:46:17.849
populations. Let's just, let's pause on that.

00:46:17.929 --> 00:46:20.869
A 20 % drop in life expectancy. We spend so much

00:46:20.869 --> 00:46:23.750
time talking about public policy in these abstract,

00:46:24.030 --> 00:46:27.250
sterile, bureaucratic terms, trusts, allotments,

00:46:27.449 --> 00:46:30.510
fee simple denominators. But a 20 % drop in life

00:46:30.510 --> 00:46:32.769
expectancy means this wasn't just a bad real

00:46:32.769 --> 00:46:34.449
estate deal. This wasn't just an administrative

00:46:34.449 --> 00:46:36.869
oopsie. This was a lethal policy. It killed people.

00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:39.099
systematically shortened the lives of the people

00:46:39.099 --> 00:46:41.719
it claimed it was trying to civilize. And this

00:46:41.719 --> 00:46:43.519
highlights a crucial reality that we have to

00:46:43.519 --> 00:46:46.400
confront. The Dossack isn't just a dusty historical

00:46:46.400 --> 00:46:49.179
artifact from 1887. It isn't a closed chapter

00:46:49.179 --> 00:46:52.119
in a textbook. It is an active ongoing daily

00:46:52.119 --> 00:46:54.159
crisis. Because the government hasn't fixed the

00:46:54.159 --> 00:46:56.489
system. Right. The federal government still hasn't

00:46:56.489 --> 00:46:58.630
adopted the modern legal tools that states or

00:46:58.630 --> 00:47:00.869
local governments use to return abandoned or

00:47:00.869 --> 00:47:03.849
highly fractionated property to productive community

00:47:03.849 --> 00:47:06.909
use. So the trust continues, the owners multiply,

00:47:07.070 --> 00:47:09.309
the fractions get smaller, and the land remains

00:47:09.309 --> 00:47:11.949
dead and paralyzed. So what does this all mean?

00:47:12.110 --> 00:47:15.309
When we zoom out and look at this entire century

00:47:15.309 --> 00:47:18.449
and a half long story. It means that a self -righteous

00:47:18.449 --> 00:47:21.610
attempt to force cultural assimilation via the

00:47:21.610 --> 00:47:24.349
concept of private property ownership resulted

00:47:24.349 --> 00:47:27.699
in stolen wealth, lost culture, and quite literally

00:47:27.699 --> 00:47:31.000
an unsolvable math problem. They took a functioning,

00:47:31.360 --> 00:47:34.420
resilient communal society, aggressively imposed

00:47:34.420 --> 00:47:37.840
a rigid European grid of individualism over it,

00:47:37.840 --> 00:47:40.159
and in the process they broke both the society

00:47:40.159 --> 00:47:42.460
and the grid itself. It stands as a monumental

00:47:42.460 --> 00:47:44.679
testament to the unintended, or perhaps if you

00:47:44.679 --> 00:47:47.320
read Senator Teller's quotes, the entirely intended

00:47:47.320 --> 00:47:49.940
consequences of top -down colonial social engineering.

00:47:50.480 --> 00:47:53.019
You cannot force a culture to change its relationship

00:47:53.019 --> 00:47:55.349
to the earth by handing them a ledger. We've

00:47:55.349 --> 00:47:58.289
covered incredible heavy ground today. We started

00:47:58.289 --> 00:48:02.070
by looking at a vibrant 155 million acre reservation

00:48:02.070 --> 00:48:04.570
system sustained by ancient communal traditions.

00:48:05.070 --> 00:48:07.670
We watched the Dawes Act violently force privatization

00:48:07.670 --> 00:48:10.889
onto that land. We saw the destructive unscientific

00:48:10.889 --> 00:48:13.750
use of blood quantum by federal clerks to legally

00:48:13.750 --> 00:48:16.530
erase indigenous identities. We witnessed the

00:48:16.530 --> 00:48:19.030
devastating calculated loss of 90 million acres

00:48:19.030 --> 00:48:21.650
of tribal land to tax traps and corporate greed

00:48:21.650 --> 00:48:24.369
in just a few decades. And finally, we explored

00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:27.260
the bizarre, paralyzing modern reality of fractionation,

00:48:27.539 --> 00:48:30.019
where an inheritance becomes a $40 ,000 a year

00:48:30.019 --> 00:48:32.260
administrative burden for a piece of land worth

00:48:32.260 --> 00:48:34.960
half that. It is an incredibly complex, painful

00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:37.260
legacy that demands our attention, primarily

00:48:37.260 --> 00:48:39.460
because the ledger is still open. The government

00:48:39.460 --> 00:48:41.760
is still processing the paperwork, and the fractions

00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:44.039
are still dividing today. I want to leave you,

00:48:44.099 --> 00:48:46.139
the listener, with something tangible to think

00:48:46.139 --> 00:48:48.739
about. The next time you sit down at a desk to

00:48:48.739 --> 00:48:51.460
sign a piece of property paperwork, whether it's

00:48:51.460 --> 00:48:53.400
closing on a mortgage, signing a rental lease,

00:48:53.539 --> 00:48:55.800
or drafting a will, I want you to think about

00:48:55.800 --> 00:48:57.719
how those laws of inheritance and ownership,

00:48:57.820 --> 00:49:00.719
which seem so incredibly mundane and normal to

00:49:00.719 --> 00:49:04.480
us, can actually be weaponized. Think about how

00:49:04.480 --> 00:49:07.119
a simple deed, a piece of paper with a signature,

00:49:07.519 --> 00:49:10.539
can be used to dismantle an entire culture. And

00:49:10.539 --> 00:49:13.460
think about how a bureaucracy can blindly outlive

00:49:13.460 --> 00:49:16.400
its creators to haunt descendants centuries later,

00:49:16.780 --> 00:49:18.940
meticulously doing the math to send them a penny

00:49:18.940 --> 00:49:21.820
every 177 years. I'll leave you with a final

00:49:21.820 --> 00:49:23.900
thought to mull over, building directly on that

00:49:23.900 --> 00:49:26.400
math. If the current trajectory holds and we

00:49:26.400 --> 00:49:28.340
actually reach 11 million fractional interest

00:49:28.340 --> 00:49:31.139
by the year 2030, does there come a legal and

00:49:31.139 --> 00:49:33.440
philosophical point where the very concept of

00:49:33.440 --> 00:49:35.769
ownership itself completely breaks down? Think

00:49:35.769 --> 00:49:38.210
about it. When a piece of land has more legal

00:49:38.210 --> 00:49:40.630
owners than it has grains of soil, who really

00:49:40.630 --> 00:49:44.090
owns it? That is the perfect unsettling question

00:49:44.090 --> 00:49:46.349
to end on. Thank you for joining us on this deep

00:49:46.349 --> 00:49:49.030
dive into the sources. And as always, keep questioning

00:49:49.030 --> 00:49:50.349
the systems built around you.