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Long title | An Act relative to employment for certain adult Indians on or near Indian reservations. |
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Enacted by | the 84th United States Congress |
Effective | August 3, 1956 |
Citations | |
Public law | 84-959 |
Statutes at Large | 70 Stat. 986 |
Legislative history | |
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The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 (also known as Public Law 959 or the Adult Vocational Training Program) was a United States law intended to create a "a program of vocational training" for Native Americans in the United States. Critics characterize the law as an attempt to encourage Native Americans to leave Indian reservations and their traditional lands, to assimilate into the general population in urban areas, and to weaken community and tribal ties. [1] Critics also characterize the law as part of the Indian termination policy between 1940 and 1960, which terminated the tribal status of numerous groups and cut off previous assistance to tribal citizens. [1] The Indian Relocation Act encouraged and forced Native Americans to move to cities for job opportunities. [1] It also played a significant role in increasing the population of urban Native Americans in succeeding decades. [2] [3] [4] [5]
At a time when the U.S. government was decreasing subsidies to Native Americans living on reservations, the Relocation Act offered to pay moving expenses and provide some vocational training for those who were willing to move from the reservations to certain government-designated cities, where employment opportunities were said by the legislators to be favorable. [2] Types of assistance offered included relocation transportation, transportation of household goods, subsistence per diem for both the time of relocation and up to four weeks after arrival, and funds to purchase tools or equipment for apprentice workers. Vocational training was oriented towards jobs in industry and other professions that hadn't existed in rural communities. Additional benefits offered included: medical insurance for workers and their dependents, grants to purchase work clothing, grants to purchase household goods and furniture, tuition costs for vocational night school training, and in some cases funds to help purchase a home. [6] However, not all who accepted these offers actually received these benefits once they arrived in the cities, leading to some cases of poverty, culture shock, joblessness and homelessness among this population in the new, urban environment. [7] [8] A major issue that came with this was the then inability for Native Americans to return to their reservations. If relocation had been completed, the reservation the Natives had previously lived on was dissolved. From 1950 to 1968 almost 200,000 Native Americans migrated to cities, leaving reservations almost completely a thing of the past. [9]
In 1947, Secretary of the Interior, Julius Krug, at the request of President Truman, proposed a ten-year program to provide the Hopi and Navajo tribes with vocational training. In 1950, the Navajo-Hopi Law was passed which funded a program to help relocate tribe members to Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Denver and help them find jobs. In 1951 the Bureau of Indian Affairs began expanding the program and assigned relocation workers to Oklahoma, New Mexico, California, Arizona, Utah and Colorado, officially extending the program to all Native Americans the following year. In 1955, additional BIA relocation offices in Cleveland, Dallas, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, the San Francisco Bay area, San Jose, Seattle, and Tulsa were added. Relocation to cities, where more jobs were available, was expected to reduce poverty among Native Americans, who tended to live on isolated, rural reservations.[ citation needed ]
Through the first half of the 20th century, the majority of the American population had become increasingly urbanized, as cities were the places with jobs and related amenities. But in 1950, only 6% of Native Americans lived in urban areas.
The plan of assimilation that was followed assumed that mainstreaming of Native Americans would be easier in metropolitan areas and there would be more work opportunities for them there. Quotas were implemented for processing relocatees. By 1954 approximately 6200 Native Americans had been relocated to cities. [7]
Critics have characterized the Indian Relocation Act as one legislative event in a long series of violence and legislation to get rid of and assimilate Native Americans, called settler colonialism. According to this line of argument, the Indian Relocation Act goes along with the Indian termination policy and land theft in which settler colonialism is intricately tied to.
To succeed in occupation of land by settlers, it is argued settler colonialism is predicated on the theft of land of original inhabitants, which in the United States are Native Americans. [10] While the beginning of US settler colonialism witnessed physical violence against Native Americans, it is proposed later efforts to steal land were based on legislation. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 broke up communally owned reservation land into smaller, individually owned lots for each tribal member and remaining tribal land not given to tribal members were sold to settlers. [10] This effort was to promote individualistic values on Native American people. [10] As a continuation of the Dawes Act the Indian termination policy further emphasized individual ownership of land and sold more of reservation land to settlers. [10] Over the next decade the government terminated 109 tribes and removed 2.5 million acres of trust land. [1] Related to the Indian Relocation Act, those who moved to cities forfeited their designated allotment, lessening the amount of land for reservations and making it further vulnerable to encroaching settler colonialism. This theft of land from the Dawes Act, the termination policy, and the subsequent relocation program allowed for more encroaching settler colonialism and opened more opportunities for development and resource extraction. [11]
The Indian termination policy directly preceded the Indian Relocation Act and is seen by critics as another legislative event under the history of settler colonialism. It terminated Native American reservations which removed legal standing as sovereign dependent nations. [1] This included an end to all federal aid, protections, and services, such as health care. [1] [12] It is proposed that this policy directly worsened conditions on reservations and for Native American people. For the Monominees tribes, for example, it is argued this caused a rapidly sinking economy, health and education issues, and skyrocketing tuberculosis rate. [12]
Because of this ended support for Native American people, the BIA began a voluntary urban relocation program. [13] Critics described the relocation program as an intentional continuation of settler colonialism to continue assimilation and "get out of the reservation business". [11] Superficially marketed as a job opportunities program, the relocation act was enticing for many Native American people suffering the consequences of the termination policy. While some people volunteered to move, many were pressured to leave reservations experienced what they describe as harassed by BIA officials. [12] Motivations to assimilate were based on disconnecting people from traditional homelands, where Native American people have special relationships to land and ties communities. [1] [14] While an economic and cultural disaster for many indigenous people of the United States, the act was rationally planned and successful for the US. [12] Native American scholar Vine Deloria Jr. describes the Indian Relocation Act as the "Most disastrous policy outside termination ... meant to get Indians off reservation and into the city slums where they could fade away". [12]
The main text of the act empowers the Secretary of the Interior to fund and administer a program for vocational training for eligible Native Americans:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in order to help adult Indians who reside on or near Indian reservations to obtain reasonable and satisfactory employment, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to undertake a program of vocational training that provides for vocational counseling or guidance, institutional training in any recognized vocation or trade, apprenticeship, and on the job training, for periods that do not exceed twenty-four months, transportation to the place of training, and subsistence during the course of training. The program shall be available primarily to Indians who are not less than eighteen and not more than thirty-five years of age and who reside on or near an Indian reservation, and the program shall be conducted under such rules and regulations as the Secretary may prescribe. For the purposes of this program the Secretary is authorized to enter into contracts or agreements with any Federal, State, or local governmental agency, or with any private school which has a recognized reputation in the field of vocational education and has successfully found employment for its graduates in their respective fields of training, or with any corporation or association which has an existing apprenticeship or on-the-job training program which is recognized by industry and labor as leading to skilled employment. [15]
Section 2 of the act sets an amount of funding for such programs:
There is authorized to be appropriated for the purposes of this Act the sum of $3,500,000 for each fiscal year, and not to exceed $500,000 of such sum shall be available for administrative purposes. [15]
In 1960, it was reported that in excess of 31,000 people had moved off the reservation and to urban areas since 1952, with about 30% returning to their reservations. [11] About 70% of them becoming self-sufficient in their new cities. [16] It is estimated that between the 1950s and 1980s, as many as 750,000 Native Americans migrated to the cities, some as part of the relocation program, others on their own. By the 2000 census, the urban Indian population was 64% higher than it had been in the pre-termination era of the 1940s. [17] The biggest concern for the government with the relocation of Native Americans was that the large reservations could not hold them numbers wise. It was no longer that the land was too valuable for the Natives, but that the land was "too small" to hold them. [18]
Schools offered vocational or on-the-job training to anyone age 18 to 35 who was at least one-fourth Native American. More than 3500 persons enrolled in 322 institutions and job placement was reported at 70% by 1966. Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology reported that 91% of graduates were employed after the program. [19] Students entered vocational programs, including study of more than 100 vocations including electronics, nursing, and X-ray technology, with assistance from the act. Students were provided two years of education, along with transportation, room, board, funds for books and tools, and a living allowance. [20] [19] Overall, the program had devastating long-term effects. [8] Relocated tribe members became isolated from their communities and experienced homesickness. [1] Many also faced racial discrimination and segregation. Many found only low-paying jobs with little advancement potential with the higher expenses typical for urban areas. Scholar Evelyn Nakano Glenn writes that "Native American men were often tracked into low-level, dead-end jobs, and women were directed to domestic service in white households". [1] Many suffered from the lack of community support and lived in urban poverty, poor health, with substance abuse, emotional suffering, and a loss of tribal connection and cultural identity. [11] Many could not return to dissolved reservations and those who could often found they did not "fit in" with those who stayed behind. [13]
Given the rapid urban expansion of the period, Native Americans often found that lower cost housing was often in areas most likely to be targeted for urban renewal and replaced with office buildings, freeways and commercial developments. This added to the instability of their lives. Redlining often made it impossible for people either to find homes near their employment or to be able to afford desirable housing. Children of relocated workers had difficulty enrolling in segregated public schools and faced the same social discrimination as their parents. [21] These children of Native Americans would in some scenarios be forced into boarding schools by the government. This was another layer of the plan to integrate and Indians into urban life. It was at these boarding schools that the Native American children would have haircuts enforced and be essentially brainwashed ageist Native culture. The only positive was that at this point, very slowly, the boarding schools were beginning to be phased out. [22]
Despite the overly positive declarations made by its supporters, in reality, termination and relocation policy wrought social havoc for Indians generally. Mothers would be terrified to let their children even so much as play in their neighborhood. The Native Americans felt lost in the city where they knew nothing. The groups would often end up living hotels for long stretches of time upon moving to cities and having no money to afford much else than a room. [18]
Native Americans were not allowed to return to their reserves, tearing families apart.
While people who moved from reservations were initially isolated, Native Americans began to form communities through intertribal communities. These community endeavors included cultural centers, pow wows, and general community support. [11] In addition, more politically motivated cross cultural groups began to form with proximity in cities and a pan-Indian consciousness developed. [11] This resulted in inter-tribal marriages and people holding claims to multiple Indian nations. [1] Similarly, coalitions began to form among tribal communities which would not have existed had people stayed on reservations. [12] Though this pan-Indian identity was important to bridge groups together, it is important to note that tribal differences were still important and did not lead to a "melting pot" of a single identity. [12]
Pan-Indian political groups were unique to cities. First, these groups had proximity to black civil rights groups and provided support for political efforts, such as protests on Alcatraz. [1] In addition, the American Indian Movement was founded in Minneapolis in 1968. This activism included legal challenges to the termination and relocation policy which eventually succeeded. [1] Overall, Native American activism had a large advantage in the cities over reservations, with large coalitions, proximity to other civil rights movements, and a distancing from the BIA. [12]
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians. AIM soon widened its focus from urban issues to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
An American Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose government is autonomous, subject to regulations passed by the United States Congress and administered by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, and not to the U.S. state government in which it is located. Some of the country's 574 federally recognized tribes govern more than one of the 326 Indian reservations in the United States, while some share reservations, and others have no reservation at all. Historical piecemeal land allocations under the Dawes Act facilitated sales to non–Native Americans, resulting in some reservations becoming severely fragmented, with pieces of tribal and privately held land being treated as separate enclaves. This jumble of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties.
The Menominee are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans officially known as the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. Their land base is the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated 10 million acres (40,000 km2) in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians is a federally recognized Native American tribe of Ojibwe based on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota. The tribe has 30,000 enrolled members. A population of 5,815 reside on the main reservation and another 2,516 reside on off-reservation trust land.
The Brothertown Indians, located in Wisconsin, are a Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities descended from Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, Niantic, and Mohegan (Algonquian-speaking) tribes of southern New England and eastern Long Island, New York. In the 1780s after the American Revolutionary War, they migrated from New England into New York state, where they accepted land from the Iroquois Oneida Nation in Oneida County.
In the United States, an American Indian tribe, Native American tribe, Alaska Native village, Indigenous tribe or Tribal nation may be any current or historical tribe, band, or nation of Native Americans in the United States. Modern forms of these entities are often associated with land or territory of an Indian reservation. "Federally recognized Indian tribe" is a legal term in United States law with a specific meaning.
The Oneida Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Oneida people in Wisconsin. The tribe's reservation spans parts of two counties west of the Green Bay metropolitan area. The reservation was established by treaty in 1838, and was allotted to individual New York Oneida tribal members as part of an agreement with the U.S. government. The land was individually owned until the tribe was formed under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.
The Klamath Tribes, formerly the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon, are a federally recognized Native American Nation consisting of three Native American tribes who traditionally inhabited Southern Oregon and Northern California in the United States: the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin. The tribal government is based in Chiloquin, Oregon.
The Red Power movement was a social movement led by Native American youth to demand self-determination for Native Americans in the United States. Organizations that were part of the Red Power Movement include the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC). This movement sought the rights for Native Americans to make policies and programs for themselves while maintaining and controlling their own land and resources. The Red Power movement took a confrontational and civil disobedience approach to inciting change in United States to Native American affairs compared to using negotiations and settlements, which national Native American groups such as National Congress of American Indians had before. Red Power centered around mass action, militant action, and unified action.
John Collier, a sociologist and writer, was an American social reformer and Native American advocate. He served as Commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, from 1933 to 1945. He was chiefly responsible for the "Indian New Deal", especially the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, through which he intended to reverse a long-standing policy of cultural assimilation of Native Americans.
Indian termination is a phrase describing 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 mainstream American society. Cultural assimilation of Native Americans was not new; the belief that indigenous people should abandon their traditional lives and become what the government considers "civilized" had been the basis of policy for centuries. What was new, however, was the 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.
Federal Indian policy establishes the relationship between the United States Government and the Indian Tribes within its borders. The Constitution gives the federal government primary responsibility for dealing with tribes. Some scholars divide the federal policy toward Indians in six phases: coexistence (1789–1828), removal and reservations (1829–1886), assimilation (1887–1932), reorganization (1932–1945), termination (1946–1960), and self-determination (1961–1985).
The Bureau of Indian Affairs building takeover refers to a protest by Native Americans at the Department of the Interior headquarters in the United States capital of Washington, D.C., from November 3 to November 9, 1972. On November 3, a group of around 500 American Indians with the American Indian Movement (AIM) took over the Interior building in Washington, D.C. It being the culmination of their cross-country journey in the Trail of Broken Treaties, intended to bring attention to American Indian issues such as living standards and treaty rights.
The Big Sandy Rancheria of Mono Indians of California is a ranchería and federally recognized tribe of Western Mono Indians (Monache) located in Fresno County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census the population was 118. In 1909, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) bought 280 acres (110 ha) of land for the Big Sandy Band of Western Mono Indians.
Native American self-determination refers to the social movements, legislation and beliefs by which the Native American tribes in the United States exercise self-governance and decision-making on issues that affect their own people.
The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 authorized the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, and some other government agencies to enter into contracts with, and make grants directly to, federally recognized Indian tribes. The tribes would have authority for how they administered the funds, which gave them greater control over their welfare. The ISDEAA is codified at Title 25, United States Code, beginning at section 5301.
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Indian country jurisdiction, or the extent which tribal powers apply to legal situations in the United States, has undergone many drastic shifts since the beginning of European settlement in America. Over time, federal statutes and Supreme Court rulings have designated more or less power to tribal governments, depending on federal policy toward Indians. Numerous Supreme Court decisions have created important precedents in Indian country jurisdiction, such as Worcester v. Georgia, Oliphant v. Suquamish Tribe, Montana v. United States, and McGirt v. Oklahoma.
The administration of Richard Nixon, from 1969 to 1974, made important changes in United States policy towards Native Americans through legislation and executive action. The Nixon Administration advocated a reversal of the long-standing policy of "termination" that had characterized relations between the U.S. Government and American Indians in favor of "self-determination." The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act restructured indigenous governance in the state of Alaska, creating a unique structure of Native Corporations. Some of the most notable instances of American Indian activism occurred under the Nixon Administration including the Occupation of Alcatraz and the Standoff at Wounded Knee.
Helen Peterson was a Cheyenne-Lakota activist and lobbyist. She was the first director of the Denver Commission on Human Relations. She was the second Native American woman to become director of the National Congress of American Indians at a time when the government wanted to discharge their treaty obligations to the tribes by eliminating their tribal governments through the Indian termination policy and forcing the tribe members to assimilate into the mainstream culture. She authored a resolution on Native American education, which was ratified at the second Inter-American Indian Conference, held in Cuzco, Peru. In 1986, Peterson was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame and the following year, her papers were donated to the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives and they are now held at the National Museum of the American Indian.
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