A new display outside of the Charles B. Sears Law Library, The Federal Termination Era for Tribes 1953-1970, gives a brief overview of a time in U.S. history when Congress issued a formal statement announcing the official federal policy of Indian termination, House Concurrent Resolution 108.
The resolution called for the immediate termination of the Flathead, Klamath, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Turtle Mountain Chippewa, as well as tribes in the states of California, New York, Florida and Texas. All federal aid, services, and protection offered to these Native peoples were to cease, and the federal trust relationship and management of reservations would end.
This resolution was in place until July 8, 1970, when President Richard M. Nixon pointed federal policy in a new direction with his “Special Message to the Congress on Indian Affairs,” which denounced the policy of terminating Indian nations and announced a policy under which “the Indian future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions.”
For more information about this exhibit, contact Rebecca Chapman, Undergraduate Law and Indigenous Outreach Librarian.