Termination Revisited

In this essential contribution to twentieth-century Native history, Kenneth R. Philp reassesses the controversial and ultimately failed federal policy of termination. In the years after World War II, federal policy toward the Indian reservation system changed markedly. Reservations were seen as bastions of an old colonial order, as economically deprived areas in need of revitalization, and as obstacles to large-scale federal projects. Motivated by these views, President Truman, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Dillon Myer, and certain members of Congress worked to end the reservation system. Federal policies set during this period strongly encouraged Native peoples to terminate their status as wards of the American government, relocate to prosperous cities, and develop long-range plans to secure greater political and economic power for themselves.

Kenneth R. Philp is a professor of history at the University of Texas, Arlington. He is the author of John Collier's Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920–1954.