The policy was introduced because the government realised the previous policies had failed to bring about assimilation.
- It meant that the BIA could be abolished, reservations broke up, Indian resources sold off and their profits divided among tribal members- making Indians like any other citizen, and responsible as individuals for their own destiny.
- By terminating reservations, the government could also put white settlers on these lands.
- The lack of adequate facilities and funding for NAs in reservations could also be used as evidence backing the policy of termination.
However,
The timing of its implementation can best be explained by economic factors.
- The lands on which many of these Native Americans lived were wanted by mining and forestry companies.
For example some of the first reservations selected to be terminated belonged to the Menominee of Wisconsin and the Klamath of Oregon who had large land holdings and valuable forestry and timber resources.
Incentives:
Therefore, in order to end the reservation system that had survived, the government gave NAs the same rights as other American citizens.
NAs were encouraged to relocate by offering them accommodation and help in finding work.
However, the policy also meant a loss of lands and the further disintegration of what remained of tribal life.
Impact of Termination:
By numbers alone, the impact of termination was actually very small:
- It affected just over 13,000 out of a total Indian population of 400,000.
- Only about 3% of reservation land was lost.
However, it caused huge anxiety amongst NAs and had the ironic result of stimulating the formation of ‘Red Power’.
Historian Edward Valandra interestingly put it:
‘termination increasingly resembled extermination.’
The pace of termination slowed in the mid-50s as it became clear that many Indians had not been properly consulted and few fully understood its implications.
In 1958, the Secretary of the Interior, Fred Seaton said:
‘it is absolutely unthinkable… (that a) termination plan which did not have the understanding and acceptance of a clear majority of the members affected.’