Act an achievement, they did not realize the adverse effects it would have for many Indians. During the subsequent decades, the Five Civilized Tribes lost 90 million acres of former communal lands, which were sold to non-Natives. Many Indians were unfamiliar with land ownership and were targeted by criminals, losing their already small plots of land. Furthermore, the Dawes Act complicated the social structures of the tribes and contributed to their decline in later years. Footnotes Further reading Mathes, Valerie Sherer, ed., The Women's National Indian Association: A History. Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2015 Mathes, Valerie Sherer, Divinely Guided: The California Work of the Women's National Indian Association. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2012. Quinton, A. S. "The Woman's National Indian Association". In Eagle, Mary Kavanaugh Oldham, ed. The Congress of Women: Held in the Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U. S. A., 1893. Chicago, IL: Monarch Book Company, 1894. pp. 71–73. External links Davis, M. B. 1994. Papers of the Women's National Indian Association. Huntington Free Library (archive link, was dead) Graves, K. L. "Bonney, Mary Lucinda". American National Biography Online, Feb. 2000. Native American women's organizations Organizations established in 1879 1879 establishments in the United States