On February 8, 1887, President Grover Cleveland signed an act to end tribal control of Native American reservations and divide their land into individual holdings. The stated intent was to help Native Americans assimilate by encouraging private ownership vs. tribal cooperation, but it also permitted the government to take land that wasn’t doled out. Indians eventually lost 62 percent of their pre-1887 holdings. Forty years later the act was reversed but the damage had already been done.
