Native Americans had struggled for many decades to gain back certain rights, lands, resources, and governance once accessible to them, but after WWII we entered the Termination era which sought to end these once and for all in the name of “total assimilation”. The Native people had to grapple with bureaucratic obstacles to obtain basic things that should have already been theirs to begin with before the United States was colonized. Still, as soon as the government sought to retract any progress that had been made, government action was very quick and little could be done against them. This is partly because the U.S. has sovereign immunity so they could not be sued by Native groups without their consent which often was not given1. The Termination era eventually ended after a long uphill battle through Native activism but its effects remain many years after and even today. For example, due to the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, many Native people moved to the cities because of incentivization by the BIA of housing and employment assistance2. This program fell way short of what was promised so families relocated back to the areas of which they came from when it was possible, but as evidenced by the significant rise in the percentage of all Native population, we can see that this effect reaches far into the future. Many communities were also stripped of their federal recognition as sovereign nations during Termination of which a significant number of communities never got back even to this day. A lot of activism and work went into reversing these actions made by the government that would have shifted attention away from other Native issues in order to hold Native people back while other Americans entered a new era of modernization, growth, and affluence that would have been at the time unattainable for those affected by Termination and creating greater rifts between the groups.
- Slide 3&4 of the slideshow from October 30th
2. Slide 8 of the slideshow from October 30th