Congress Passes the Termination Policy

In 1953 Congress reversed the direction of the Indian New Deal with House Concurrent Resolution 108, which declared it the policy of the United States to end the federal government's special relationship with Native nations 'as rapidly as possible.' The goal of 'termination' was to dissolve tribes as legal entities, end federal recognition and services, place Native people under ordinary state jurisdiction, and ultimately assimilate them into the general population. A companion program encouraged Native families to leave the reservations and relocate to cities.

Termination proved deeply damaging to the nations subjected to it. More than a hundred tribes and bands lost federal recognition; some, like the Menominee of Wisconsin and the Klamath of Oregon, saw their reservations broken up and their resources sold, plunging once-stable communities into poverty and political limbo. Far from helping Native people, the policy stripped them of land, services, and sovereignty, and it provoked fierce resistance that helped galvanize a new generation of Native activism. Within two decades termination was widely condemned as a failure and formally abandoned.