Eisenhower’s Wish Termination Indian Reaction Where The Indians Went Tyler Long, Pd. 7SOURCES

What Eisenhower Wants Eisenhower wanted to relocate Native Americans from their reservations in order to… – Assimilate them into mainstream American society. – Get Indians to a city where jobs were plentiful. – Also, in the 40’s and 50’s, only about 8% of Native Americans lived in the cities. – Eisenhower did not like the idea of having the Native Americans separate from the rest of the country.

A Little Thing Called “Termination” Termination was the policy adopted by the U.S. gov’t to speed up this process of relocation. – Used by the U.S. from the mid 40’s to the mid 60’s, and was fueled by the belief that Natives would be better off as part of mainstream society. – Intention was to grant Indians all rights/privileges of citizenship, but ultimately meant ending the U.S.’s recognition of tribes and reservations across the country. – The Indians were also to be subject to state and federal taxes. – From , the gov’t terminated the recognition of 109 tribes, and 2.5 million acres of trust land was stripped away from the Indians and sold to the public.gov’t terminated

More Termination All of this turmoil from the gov’t meant stripping away their traditional rights to land, hunting, fishing, and basically disabled the tribe as a whole. – Now that most tribes were heavily isolated, they didn’t have proper funding to continue to provide services to other tribe membersprovide services

Services Sadly Interrupted Due to cut funding, the Indians couldn’t even help their own people. – Health Care and Education had been perhaps the most affected. Health CareEducation – Something called the Indian Health Service was no longer able to contribute because once the tribe was terminated, it lost it’s much needed eligibility. – Many tribes didn’t even have hospitals to go to anymore, and no means to get any type of healthcare. – Health standards fell far below the whites.

Education Greatly Affected In Tribes Many tribes experienced up to a 75% drop-out rate! – The states were now responsible for resuming education. – Indian children faced fewer educational opportunities, and were often assimilated into schools of mixed race, or just Indian public schools. – In 1970, the BIA gave out scholarships for non-terminated tribes to go to school, but this didn’t help terminated tribes being that they weren’t allowed to apply for these at all.

Indian Reaction Many tribal groups launched protests and lawsuits against the termination policy, considering it an attempt to wipe out Indian communities. – The Indians thought that the policy would ruin future leaders and destroy tribal culture. – Several of these protests/lawsuits played a major role in the whole termination era.lawsuits – A few tribes were able to regain federal recognition through large court battles, which cost tribes a lot of money though.

Major Indian Lawsuits Tribal leaders John White and Ada Deer were figureheads for the Menominee Tribe. – Got their cases heard by the U.S. Congress, and eventually the Supreme Court. – The tribe got publicity through protest groups that fought against termination, with many court battles in Washington state. – The Menominee, along with 3 other tribes eventually were terminated, but were allowed to remain a sovereign state at last.

Where The Indians Went The Act urged Native Americans to move to urban areas. There were relocation offices in major cities to assist these newcomers. This was happening while middle-class Americans left the cities to head for the suburbs. – Relocation offices set up in 9 major cities: Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Dallas. – Even though in the city, Indians faced harsh conditions and lived in slums/ad apartments along with poor blacks and Hispanics. – Earnings were still low. Earnings

Earnings In The Cities In the 1950’s, wages were widespread: – Black Person: $2,000 per year – White Person: $4,000 per year – Native American on Reservation: $950 per year – American Indian couples earn $71 for every $100 earned by all U.S. married couples in the city.

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