Termination (Indian policy)
As Termination phase is Federal Indian Policy referred, which had the goal of the administration of Indian reservations by the federal government of the United States repealed and the members of the Indian tribes assimilated to all citizens of the United States. At the same time, all guarantees from the treaties between the United States and the peoples, according to which land in reservations have a special community status and cannot be used or sold individually, would be void. The termination was developed around 1943 and compulsorily implemented between 1953 and 1958; it had further effects until at least 1968.
target
As early as 1943, the Senate of the United States presented a plan with the Senate Report 310 to lift the trust status of Indian landed property and the connection of the areas to federal law and to subject the previous reservations to the laws of the respective states .
When Dillon S. Myer took office as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1950, the nature of American Indian policy changed. The goals of the Indian Reorganization Act and the plans for the extensive self-government of the tribes as well as the say of the tribal governments were postponed. Myer sought the dissolution of all tribes. An essential part of his policy was to get the Indians to relocate to cities. A total of 61,600 Indians settled in urban areas between 1950 and 1967 , either voluntarily or through pressure. In 1952, Myer brought a bill to the American Parliament, according to which the federal government should give up its responsibility for the Indians. Instead, the Indians should be responsible for themselves. The proposal came into force in 1953 as House Concurrent Resolution 108 . It is interesting to note that the term termination is nowhere in this resolution. Rather, it was bypassed with sentences such as “to end the wardship status of the Indians and to grant them all of the rights and prerogatives pertaining to American citizenship”.
consequences
This law had far-reaching consequences. A list was made of all the strains that were sufficiently advanced to be terminated immediately. By 1962, 120 mostly smaller tribes, but also some larger ones such as the Menominee in Wisconsin or the Klamath in Oregon , were quickly dissolved. This affected around three percent of all Indians, most of them living on the west coast. The Indians lost their special autonomous status. They had to pay taxes, which they mostly couldn't, and no longer received state support. The regular compensation payments that had been contractually guaranteed in the past in return for the settlement of Indian lands by the whites expired. So the Indians were soon dependent on welfare. They lost control of their reservation and their land. Between 1953 and 1957 alone, i.e. in the first four years of the termination policy, the Indians lost 1.8 million acres (7,300 km²). By the end of the termination policy, there should be over 2.4 million acres (9700 km²).
As a result of Myers resettlement programs, a total of 78,000 Indians had moved from the reservations to the cities by 1972, of which only 48,000 found a job. Around a third of the Indians affected returned to the reservations in the same period.
The Indians were completely unprepared for the withdrawal of their special Indian status. Very few found their way around the white world so suddenly. Emergency measures had to be taken as early as the 1960s to put an end to the growing poverty of the Indians. Thousands of Indians had to be financially supported. In 1971 alone, the government was forced to spend $ 626 million on medical care, education, welfare, economic programs and house building for the Indians.
Change in politics
In 1958, Home Secretary Fred Andrew Seaton declared that no more tribes should be released from federal administration without their formal approval, but the policy of termination continued for several years and determined Indian policy well into the 1960s. Under the influence of the civil rights movement , the image of the Indians also changed, after long negotiations and the breaking out of conflicts with the American Indian Movement and the occupation of the island of Alcatraz (1969-71) as well as the armed uprising of Wounded Knee (1973) the cornerstone was laid laid for the Indian Self Determination Act of 1975. It puts the relations between the Indian peoples and the federal government on a new basis, confirms the validity of the concluded contracts and guarantees the collective rights of the peoples to self-administration.
See also
literature
- Frantz, Klaus: The Indian reservations in the USA - aspects of territorial development and socio-economic change . Geological knowledge, volume 109. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart: 1993
- Washburn, Wilcomb: Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 4: History of Indian-White Relations . Smithsonian Institution (ed.). Washington: 1988.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christopher K. Riggs: American Indians, Economic Development, and Self-Determination in the 1960s. In: The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 69, No. 3 (August 2000), pp. 431-463