Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: Analysis of the Protective Clauses of the Act through a Comparison with the Dawes Act of 1887

Abstract

and were promulgated at a point in history when Indian-white con tact was at a precarious stage with regard to social adaptation. In addition, integrating the natives into the dominant white culture was an expressed goal of each settlement.4 Failure to legislate proper safeguards to protect uneducated Indians, who during the i88o's and 1890^ were ill-equipped to manage their sudden wealth, resulted in uneconomical dissipation of their property.5 Herein lies a key to fashioning a modern congressional remedy in order to avoid a recurrence of the disastrous aftereffects of the Dawes Act.6