negative

• • Assumption: IRA assumed most Native Americans wanted to stay on reservations
  • Opposition: Vigorously opposed by Native Americans wanting assimilation into white society
  • Resentment: Against paternalism of Bureau of Indian Affairs
• Only 38,000 out of approximately 97,000 eligible Native Americans voted in favor of the IRA
• Nearly 24,000 voted against it
• 170 out of 245 tribes accepted the IRA
• Larger tribes were among those who rejected it
• Electoral rules were criticized for lacking credibility
• No vote counted as a vote in favor, affecting close elections
• Use of secret ballot unpopular among tribes
• Secret ballot seen as part of "white man's culture"
• Tribes preferred traditional tribal councils,

  • They discussed matters openly without secret ballots
• • Poverty: Collier's policies failed to alleviate poverty among Native Americans
  • Land erosion: Allotment policies left 100,000 landless Indians
  • Reservation land sold off since 1887
  • Economic sustainability: Few could achieve economic self-sustainability
  • Land base increase: Collier added only four million acres to Native American land base
  • Budget limitations: BIA's annual budget insufficient for economic development, education, and healthcare
• Dawes Act


  138 million acres of Native American land lost
• Only four million acres restored out of 138 million lost due to Dawes Act
• Federal Funding


  Insufficient for land buyback and reservation improvements
• $1 billion yearly funding diverted to war effort after US involvement in World War II
• Road, school, and hospital construction halted, maintenance reduced
• Period up to 1945 saw limited improvement in Native American conditions
• Act did not completely end policy of assimilation; government expected Native Americans to embrace American way of life
• Intrusion of World War II and subsequent termination policy limited long-term impact of "Indian New Deal"