The End of Termination

The termination policy of the 1950s, which sought to dissolve tribes and end the federal trust relationship, met growing resistance from Native communities and reform-minded officials almost from the start. The Kennedy administration in the early 1960s signaled a retreat from termination, emphasizing economic development on the reservations rather than the abolition of the nations themselves. The change reflected mounting evidence that termination was impoverishing the very people it claimed to help and a rising tide of Native political organizing.

The decisive break came under President Richard Nixon, who in a landmark 1970 message to Congress denounced termination and called for a new policy of Native 'self-determination without termination.' The shift was made law in the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which allowed tribes to take over the administration of federal programs on their own reservations and to chart their own course. Terminated nations such as the Menominee fought their way back to federal recognition. Self-determination has remained the guiding principle of federal Indian policy ever since, underpinning a broad revival of tribal government and culture.