The Redbud City: It happened in February
Clyde Wooldridge
Contributing writer
1851 - The Indian Appropriations Act was the name of several acts passed by the Congress. A considerable number of acts were passed under the same name throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. From the outset, the most notable landmark of the acts was the one of 1851.
The official name was the “Appropriation Bill for Indian Affairs,” passed on Feb. 27, 1851. The act allocated funds to move western tribes onto reservations. Reservations were protected and enclosed by the federal government. According to the government at that time, reservations were created to protect the Native Americans from the growing encroachment of whites moving westward. This act set the precedent for modern-day Native American reservations.