The Indian Appropriations Act 1851
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As land was claimed and turned into private property, arriving settlers aggressively encroached on Native American territory, and began to agitate for the expansion of territory into sovereign Native land. The Indian Appropriations Act (1851) relegated Indians to reservations in the West. For Indians, reservation life was restraining, and the land Natives were forced to occupy were often too small to raise animals or hunt on and not viable agriculturally. Still, many settlers believed that Indians had gotten the choicest land, and pressed for their availability to claim. The government responded to this crisis in favor of the white settlers and land speculators, stripping Indians of the last semblance of sovereignty they had by abolishing the