AROUND THE CAMPFIRE: Fear of Termination

To me, termination is real. I am working on a book about it now, and living with the book daily. Most young Indian people don’t have any idea of what it is, and how it affected Indian people from 1953 until 1976.

Congress declared in 1953 that it would end all Indian treaties. It then terminated 176 tribes. Termination did not end until 1976, when Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson got the “Self-Determination” act passed. Even though Pres. Richard Nixon had declared in 1970 that termination was over, Congress did not make it so until six years later. Both Nixon and Jackson had been strong supporters of termination in the 1940s and 1950s. Both changed their minds because of Alcatraz.

I had a fear of termination again in the late 1970s. The defenders of wildlife such as Ducks Unlimited, the anti-Indian farmers and ranchers that lease Indian lands, and the National Association of Counties banded together to call for an end to tribal treaties. They got a lot of ink, and stirred up quite a controversy. They eventually went away, but their feelings didn’t.

It scares me to know how short our memory is. Young kids have no idea that Indian college students occupied Alcatraz Island in 1969. They have no idea it led directly to the end of the termination era when Pres. Nixon announced the next year that termination was over. It scares me that Indian people have only a tenuous idea that the Congress is the only Indian lifeline. And it scares me that Congress almost never hears from Indians.

For seven years I organized a lobbying force of Indians to go to DC and talk to Congress. Then NCAI put their teepees on the mall, and we quit going.

The last year we did it, 1995, we decided to target Republican congressmen, mainly from the western states. Out of 80 people we visited that year, exactly none had seen an Indian in the previous year. One of the congressmen from Georgia said he had never been on an Indian reservation and would like to visit one some day.

One of my friends from Laguna told me later about how she had met a member of Congress from the East. She invited him to visit Laguna, and he did. He was shocked at the poverty and the unemployment, and amazed at how far one village is from another. The distances in the east are very short. It’s further from Gallup to Flagstaff than it is from DC to New York.

Congress, despite being the savior of Indians, is woefully ignorant of what Indian culture is all about. They have no idea how bad the school buildings are our kids have to attend. They have no idea what 50% unemployment is like. They have no idea what it means to have to wait two days to see a doctor when you’re sick. And they need to know all these things.

It was frustrating to know that tribes worked against us going to DC. When one of our potential lobbyists went naively to the Navajo Nation to ask for support to get to DC, they told her not to go. “We will take care of lobbying,” they told her. “We have an office there.” The only problem was they weren’t on the Hill from that office. Their influence is minimal.

It took a monumental effort just to get people to go to DC. That last year we sent out 2,700 letters and got 17 people to go. That 17 was the largest number we got in seven years of trying. It took a monumental effort just to get there. Two ladies got in their car in Washington State and drove the whole way by themselves. We got by doubling up in cheap motels and staying in campgrounds.

Most people think the Indian offices in DC spend a lot of time on the Hill. They don’t. They spend a lot of time in their offices, going to meetings, and planning meetings.

Congress terminated 113 reservations between 1953 and 1966. Those 113 reservations had 176 tribes on them. These statistics show the current status of these 113 tribes:

Number that have been recognized again by the federal government: 78

Number that are still not recognized by the federal government: 35

Number that have been recognized by state government: 10

Number of tribes that are landless: 30

Number that are now extinct: 24

Number that have casinos: 35.

Does anyone worry about the poor tribes that are still terminated? Will they ever have justice and regain federal recognition? The tribes that are still terminated tend to live at the end of a long dirt road, they are isolated, unemployment is high, they have huge social problems that were mainly caused by the federal government, and many of them are without help. They have no access to researchers, academics who could help them, and lawyers.

The next attack is going to come from the obvious—gaming and economic development. The attack is going to come from people who are so ignorant that they put all Indians into one category. They think that the handful of small tribes that have large casinos should support all Indians.

They have no clue, and do not care, that the difference between an eastern tribe and one from Oregon is about the same as the difference between a Norwegian and a Mongolian. Andy Rooney, the guy from “60 Minutes,” leads the way in this ignorance.

The established non-Indian gaming leaders are going to lead the way. They will have the support of the anti-Indian people living on or near reservations. The wildlife people, the National Association of Counties, and others will join in.

Bad guys led the last termination battle. Sen. Arthur Watkins from Utah and Rep. E. Y. Berry of South Dakota were the lead villains in the attack on tribal sovereignty. But they were aided by another dozen key people. It will be the same next time.

We are going to lose one of the Indian defenders shortly. Rep. Dale Kildee of Michigan, and Indian supporter for more than 30 years, announced that he is not running again.

The only way to defeat termination is to stay in touch with people in Congress. Every tribal council member should know every one of his Members personally. All of the Members should have an Indian staff person, too. Now few of them do. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. There are still too many Indian haters out there.


Dr. Dean Chavers is Director of Catching the Dream, a national scholarship and school improvement organization in Albuquerque. His latest book is “Racism in Indian Country” published by Peter Lang.