It required the government to assess whether individuals were "competent and capable" before giving them fee simple patents to their allotted land.

Because the federal government believed that many Indians were not prepared for United States citizenship, the act further provided that citizenship will not be granted to Native American individuals until at the time of the final validation of their trust patents instead of upon the receipt of the trust patents, as stated in the Dawes Act.

The Burke Act amended the GAA to provide for the Secretary of the Interior to assess individual Native Americans as ‘competent and capable.’ before issuing any person receiving a land allotment a patent in fee simple.

Receiving a fee simple patent meant that the land of the allotee would be removed from federal trust status and made subject to taxation.

The act reads: Studies have shown that Bureau of Indian Affairs officials tended first to classify people as 'competent and capable' if they were of mixed-race (with some European ancestry).