Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Winter 2001
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 21, No. 1, Winter 2001, pp. 82-83.
Abstract
As the title suggests, Termination Revisited evaluates the short-lived policy to terminate the trust relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes. In keeping with his earlier work on this subject, Philp contends that termination grew out of the functional shortcomings of the Indian Reorganization Act, which failed to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse Indian population. After World War II, Indian advocates clamored for a new direction in policy, and BIA Commissioner Dillon S. Myer sought to provide it in the form of termination. Philp argues that Myer's authoritarian tendencies and bureaucratic ineptitude undercut the position of like-minded conservatives and redirected federal policy towards self-determination.
The underlying issue in this debate centered on the true nature of the trust relationship. According to Philp, key Indian leaders believed that federal guardianship emanated from solemn treaties and that protection should never be removed. Members of Congress and BIA officials, on the other hand, believing that indefinite wardship status retarded Indian advancement into the broader society, viewed the trust relationship as a transitory oversight responsibility.
Unfortunately, Philp never clarifies his own position on this issue. His main contention is that vastly changed conditions in the United States required new policy initiatives, especially in light of the failures of the Indian Reorganization Act. Bolstering his argument with a chapter on the disasters that befell the Navajo Tribe in the 19408, he implies, whether intended or not, that the Navajo suffered from the shortsightedness of former Commissioner John Collier's New Deal agenda. Yet the Navajo hardly serve as an adequate example of the failures of the IRA, since they did not ratify it. Moreover, as the author concedes, the Navajos' "greatest achievement was to persuade the federal government to design a comprehensive plan to develop reservation resources" which resulted in the $88.7 million Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act of 1950. In other words, the solution to the Navajo problem in that era came in the form of massive assistance and continued federal involvement, rather than an effort to sever the trust relationship.
Comments
Copyright 2001 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln