After WWII, the US government again pursued a policy aimed at assimilating Native Americans into mainstream American society, this time period was mostly known as the Termination and Relocation era. The US government attempted to eliminate the reservations and relocated Native Americans into the urban areas and was convinced that if they could live among the other people and adopt a “civilized” way of living. The US government seeks to cut off the support to the reservations and terminate recognition of the sovereignty of native tribes and their ownership of the reservation lands, and become part of the US forever. This policy was initiated around the late 1940s and was intensified and enforced by the government in the 1950s. During this time, many of the Native Tribes fought against this policy after seeing what happened to the other tribes who were derecognized by the government and took away their rights over the lands. The main reason behind the policy for relocation and termination of Native American land ownership and sovereignty was again about the resources and money. Many of the tribes who lost their lands were located in New York, California, and Texas, those states were experiencing rapid economic growth during this time period, however, there were also many reservation lands that belonged to Native Americans. Those policies were made to directly affect tribes located in more prosperity locations, it was to make it easier for white-owned enterprises and the government to take away more resources from the Native Americans as well as with the intention to further eliminate Native American culture and history.
From the video we watched regarding Russell Means testifying in the Hearing this week, He pointed out that those policies towards Native Americans and the reservations are nothing but a way of suppressing them and taking away their resources. He mentioned that government agencies such as BIA and other people who have been put in charge of oversight of reservations have been involved in corruption, and no one has been charged or investigated by the government when it has been brought out multiple times by Native American tribes. He emphasized on the fact that government officials do not care about helping Native Americans because if they did, they would listen to what they wanted. This powerful and insightful speech reminded us how important to look at the history of this country and what is still going on in the present, as the senate responded to Means in the video with “Thank you for bringing some ideas to us, whether we accept it or not.”