American Indian Nations from Termination to Restoration, 1953–2006 by Roberta Ulrich (review)

American Indian Nations from Termination to Restoration chronicles the impact of US federal government policies toward 109 Indian nations from the start of the termination program (that is, the active dissolution of Indian nations for the purpose of assimilation) in the 1950s through 2006. An accomplished newspaper reporter who worked for United Press International (UPI) as well as the Oregonian, Roberta Ulrich stitches together the accounts of disparate Native American groups to tell the story of repeated dispossession of land, resources, culture, and identity during the middle of the twentieth century.

Ulrich’s first book, Empty Nets: Indians, Dams, and the Columbia River (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1999), was based on her master’s thesis research at Portland State University. In that work, she examined the promises the federal government made, but did not keep, when the construction of the Bonneville Dam in Oregon flooded traditional fishing areas of the Columbia River Indians. Her work on that project started Ulrich on the path to a new area of research—the impact of changing federal and state government policies toward Native American communities.

American Indian Nations is divided into two parts and an epilogue. The first part, “Breaking the Ties,” explores the shift away from the federal government’s traditional recognition of a special relationship with Native American nations to a new policy of termination in the 1950s. Champions of this policy included Republican Senator Arthur Watkins (Utah) and Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. The widespread desire after World War II to resolve problems present within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in addition to “the relentless ideology of a US senator, resulted in a social experiment on a scale that was as startling in its magnitude as it was devastating to its experimental subjects. The financial, emotional and physical toll was tremendous” (6–7). Ulrich’s account of the disregard for Native American community voices throughout the termination process is chilling. For example, Watkins believed that federal government programs for Indians should be disbanded because they were socialistic during a time when communist countries were seen as enemies of the US and

viewed himself as a champion of Indian “freedom” and had little tolerance for those who disagreed. Witnesses before his subcommittee who agreed with him were treated with courtesy and given extended time to testify. He bullied Indian witnesses who disagreed until he got an answer he wanted. Other witnesses who disagreed also faced harsh questioning and an abrupt end to their testimony (16).

Ulrich invites readers to ponder the question, “Indian freedom” from and for what? In the termination process, Congress and the Department of the Interior assessed each tribe’s “readiness” to end their relationship with the federal government, often without tribal leaders present, or with limited time provided for their input on the process. Following in the footsteps of European Americans in the past, Congress broke longstanding treaties with Indian nations. The end result was further dispossession of Native American land and resources in order to benefit corporate or federal interests, as Andrew Boxer (“Native Americans and the Federal Government,” History Review 64 (2009): 7–12) argues in his work, while claiming that the process freed members of Indian nations to be more fully integrated into white society, as Casey Ryan Kelly asserts (“Orwellian Language and the Politics of Tribal Termination [1953–1960],” Western Journal of Communication 74, no. 4 [2010]: 351–71). In order to participate in the termination process, Native Americans individually received cash payments for land if they agreed to discontinue considering themselves members of their Indian nation. In essence, agreeing to participate in termination resulted in the end of tribal nations.

The second part of Ulrich’s book, “The Way Back,” documents the move toward restoration of nations, and the epilogue focuses on the results of the whole process for the Indian nations investigated. Ulrich notes the contributions of the committed groups of...