What is an allotment?
An allotment is a piece of land, usually ranging from 40 to 160 acres in size, which was originally issued to an individual Indian by the U.S. Federal Government. These pieces of land were usually carved out of the reservation on which the individual was residing or were taken out of the public domain. Indians received allotments either through treaty provisions, under the General Allotment Act of 1887, or through special acts of Congress relating to specific individuals or tribes.

How many tribes were allotted?
This is a tricky question considering the complicated history of Indian removal and resettlement. Around 135 Indian governing entities (such as tribes, confederated/affiliated tribes, rancherias, pueblos, or nations) that are currently recognized by the federal government have allotments within the borders of their original reservations. Ultimately, the original number of tribes allotted may be slightly more than this considering three factors: first, some tribes that were allotted have since lost all their land; other tribes that have lost all of their allotments have also been terminated; and finally, many reservations served as depositories for Indian groups when they were forced to move from their original homelands. In other words, on many reservations, tribes were splintered between several locations or several tribes were combined under one governing body on a reservation and were allotted as such.

What are the effects of allotment?
Due to the federal policy of allotment, Native American holdings plunged from 138 million acres in 1887 to 48 million acres by 1934. Furthermore, land that remained in Indian ownership became extremely difficult to use due to fractionation and checkerboarding.

Fractionated land is an allotment owned by more than one owner. The fractionation of land was caused by the way the General Allotment Act dictated how lands would pass from one generation to another. After an Indian allottee died, the ownership of the lands would be given to his or her heirs but the land parcel would remain intact. As these owners died, the ownership in the land would again be divided among their relatives, thus compounding over and over the number of ownership interests in a parcel of land. These single pieces of land often have hundreds of owners, which makes it difficult for any one of the owners to use the land (i.e. for farming or building a home). By law, a majority of owners must agree to a particular use of land.

Since the General Allotment Act allowed for a significant amount of land to pass out of tribal or individual Indian hands, lands within reservation boundaries may be in a variety of types of ownership—tribal, individual Indian, non-Indian, as well as a mix of trust and fee lands. Thus, the pattern of mixed ownership resembles a checkerboard. Checkerboarding seriously impairs the ability of tribes or individual Indians to use land to their own advantage for farming, ranching, as a home site or for development. It also hampers access to lands that the tribe does own and uses in traditional ways. Furthermore, serious questions of jurisdiction occur on reservations as different types of owners fall under different governing authorities.

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