As the westward movement began, many Americans saw that land as an opportunity to grow and become independent but doing all of that meant consequences to be faced by Native Americans who were mostly settled in that area. Expansion into the west meant another big drastic change into their lifestyle. The picture above shows a flyer advertising the Indian land, which was offered to white Americans to purchase after the passage of the Dawes Act.  The Dawes Act took away all of the land owned by Indian tribes and distributed a certain portion of land to each individual Indian and sold the remaining to whites.  Though this wasn’t applied to all, land was only given to Indians who were willing to give up their traditional Indian lifestyle and become American citizens. The Dawes Act was passed in 1887, there after the selling and distribution of western land began.

This information helps enhance the meaning of this document by relating to its cause and how it all began. Knowing the information I’m aware that this is previous Indian owned land taken away by government authority. Not all of the land in the west belonged to the tribes but a large portion did. The selling of this land also resulted a sweeping loss of the Indian culture due to the agreement the government required from them in order to receive land.