Bartering with the Bones of Their Dead: The Colville Confederated Tribes and Termination

5. “Come back from your pilgrimage to nowhere.” [Includes Image Plate]

93 Chapter 5 “Come back from your pilgrimage to nowhere.” T he political heyday for Colville termination had passed by 1967. Although the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs would continue to engage with the Colvilles about termination, it was clear that they were responding to the Colvilles, not initiating the conversation. At this point, the subcommittee’s consideration of termination was tied to the Colville restoration bill, not based in a strong belief in termination policy. And while Robert Bennett, the new commissioner of Indian Affairs and a member of the Oneida Tribe in Wisconsin, believed that Indians should live without federal supervision, he was among a dwindling few at the federal level who held this perspective. The hearings on the reservation in 1965 had drawn the largest crowd of tribal members in attendance at any of the Colville termination hearings, and had produced more letters and statements as well. They would also be the last subcommittee hearings held on the reservation. On June 8, 1967, the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs held hearings in Washington, DC, on S. 282, a bill that provided for single-step termination of the Colville Tribes and liquidation of assets, to be paid out to each tribal member. The bill called for a referendum to be passed by the majority of tribal members voting, then a survey of resources to determine the dollar value of each. The bill remained fundamentally similar to earlier bills, and government officials and tribal members posited many of the same objections that they had to earlier incarnations. Few supported passage of the referendum unless a majority of eligible tribal members voted in favor of it, and 94 § Chapter 5 tribal members remained concerned that Congress was asking them to blindly accept termination without any concept of compensation. Tribal council member Harvey Moses indicated that in the present bill “the Indian doesn’t know what he’s voting for.”1 The Office of the President reiterated its concerns about Colville termination —that it had not seen enough evidence of the Colvilles’ readiness for termination or an indication that a majority of the membership supported it. The office disliked the voting language within the bill, as well as the requirement for complete termination. The president preferred S. 1413 from 1965, since it provided for payment of withdrawing members and also allowed those who did not wish to terminate to remain. The Colville authors of the bill had envisaged the government buying the forested lands of the reservation in the event that no one else would, but the president’s office rejected this plan. The government already owned six million acres of commercial forest in Washington. The president’s office offered its support for termination of the Colvilles only if the subcommittee amended the bill and included the president’s suggestions .2 The Bureau of Indian Affairs had its own concerns about the bill. While a 1966 tribal opinion poll indicated that 73 percent of respondents supported termination, 30 percent of the surveys mailed had not been returned. At least a portion of tribal members who did not cast their vote had chosen to express their disagreement through silence. Robert Bennett visited the Colville Reservation for two days in March to try to understand what tribal members thought about termination. He also used the meeting as an opportunity to introduce tribal members to his own proposals. One of his options allowed tribal members to withdraw and liquidate or to remain and set up a federally chartered corporation, with the property held in trust and operated as a business. Another option would allow liquidation and withdrawal or continued residence on a reduced reservation that would remain under the reservation system.3 Seventy-five percent of the land and timber would have to be liquidated to allow the reduced reservation to exist, and the reservation would be located in two separate areas: the Nespelem area and the Inchelium area. The tribal council majority felt heartened to learn that Bennett and “key members of Congress” believed that the continued reelection of pro-termination candidates and the recent opinion poll was evidence of general Colville support for termination. Bennett indicated to the “Come back from your pilgrimage to nowhere.” § 95 minority members of the council that they should choose what they wanted in a remaining reservation or corporation, because termination of the Colville Tribes seemed inevitable, and he himself favored it.4 At a public meeting...