KnowledgeBases > Termination and Relocation

After World War II there was a conservative reaction to the Indian New Deal. In 1953 the House of Representatives passed Concurrent Resolution 108 that declared that it is "the policy of Congress, as rapidly as possible, to make the Indians within the territorial limits of the United States subject to the same laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities as are applicable to other citizens of the United States, to end their status as wards of the United States and to grant them all the rights and prerogatives pertaining to American citizenship." That year Congress passed six bills terminating tribes. The Menominee of Wisconsin and the Klamath of Oregon both lost rich timberland and suffered greatly from termination.

Whereas allotment of Indian lands from 1897 to 1934 had fragmented the land holdings on Indian reservations, termination would end them. New Indian groups, especially the National Congress of American Indians formed in 1944, quickly organized to fight termination. Associated with termination in the 1950s was a policy of relocation to move Indians from reservations with few jobs to cities where it was hoped they could find jobs. While the advocates of termination and relocation said they want to help Indians, "to set them free", the results for many was further impoverishment as those who stayed on their traditional lands lost the support and protection that reservation status gave them and many of the relocates ended up living in urban slums. Some of these urban Indians became the catalyst for the radical American Indian Movement.

The lack of success of termination and relocation as well as the almost unanimous opposition of Indian tribes led to a reversal of these policies in the 1960s. The Menominee's tribal status and was restored by Congress in 1973 and what land they still had was put back in trust status.

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