Burke Act (1906)

In 1906, the Burke Act was passed, which authorized the secretary of the interior to decide whether an Indian person was “competent” to manage his or her lands. If the Indian person was deemed “competent,” the secretary could take the land out of trust and the land would become taxable. The secretary of the interior was authorized to do this with or without the knowledge and/or against the wishes of the allottee. Thus, many Indian people ended up having their land sold in tax forclosure auctions because they owed taxes on land they thought was in trust. With the Act of May 29, 1908, the secretary of the interior was also given power to sell the allotments of deceased Indian landowners if he deemed the heirs incompetent. In the end, 27 million acres of Indian land were lost as a result of these acts.

Sourced from https://iltf.org/land-issues/history/