Indian termination policy

Indian termination was the policy of the United States from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and policies with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream American society. Assimilation was not new. The belief that indigenous people should abandon their traditional lives and become "civilized" had been the basis of policy for centuries. But what was new was the sense of urgency, that with or without consent, tribes must be terminated and begin to live "as Americans". To that end, Congress set about ending the special relationship between tribes and the federal government. The intention was to grant Native Americans all the rights and privileges of citizenship, reduce their dependence on a bureaucracy whose mismanagement had been documented, and eliminate the expense of providing services for native people.

In practical terms, the policy ended the U.S. government's recognition of sovereignty of tribes, trusteeship over Indian reservations, and exclusion of state law applicability to native persons. From the government's perspective Native Americans were to become taxpaying citizens, subject to state and federal taxes as well as laws, from which they had previously been exempt.

From the native standpoint, Northern Cheyenne former U.S. Senator from Colorado Ben Nighthorse Campbell said of assimilation and termination in a speech delivered in Montana:

The policy for termination of tribes collided with the Native American peoples' own desires to preserve native identity, reflected in an activism that increased after World War II and survived through the anti-collectivism era of Joseph McCarthy. The termination policy was changed in The Sixties and rising activism resulted in the ensuing decades of restoration of tribal governments and increased Native American self-determination.

Termination began with a series of laws directed at dismantling tribal sovereignty. From June 1940 until September 1950, six laws were passed that gave states criminal or limited-criminal jurisdiction over tribes and reservations within those states. In 1949, the Hoover Commission Report, recommending integration of native peoples into mainstream society, and the 1952 House Report (HR No. 2503), investigating the Bureau of Indian Affairs, both portrayed termination as cost effective and benign in its effects.

...
Wikipedia