Indian termination policy

Common card · No. 310309

Indian termination describes United States policies relating to Native Americans from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and practices with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into European American society. Cultural assimilation of Native Americans was not new; the assumption that indigenous people should abandon their traditional lives and become what the government considered "civilized" had been the basis of policy for centuries. There was a new sense of urgency that, with or without consent, tribes must be terminated and begin to live "as Americans". To that end, Congress set about ending the special relationship between tribes and the federal government. In practical terms, the policy ended the federal government's recognition of sovereignty of tribes, trusteeship over Indian reservations, and the exclusion of state law's applicability to Native persons. From the government's perspective, Native Americans were to become taxpaying citizens subject...

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