Chapter Objectives

Chapter Overview

This chapter describes the ongoing fight for tribal sovereignty in Oklahoma. Learners will explore the shift in federal Indian policy from termination and relocation to self-determination. In addition, the chapter highlights leaders like Wilma Mankiller and LaDonna Harris who fought for political rights and the cultural continuation of Native nations.

In November 1956, Wilma Mankiller’s whole world turned upside down. A month before her eleventh birthday, her family moved from their home in rural Adair County in northeastern Oklahoma to San Francisco, California. She later said that the move was like her own personal Trail of Tears. Wilma Mankiller had spent the first years of her life living at Mankiller Flats, her family’s land allotment. Her family struggled to make ends meet but did not want to leave their home. Her parents faced pressure to move the family to a big city where they were supposed to have the chance to make a better living. The federal government created a program in the 1950s to help Native Americans who lived in poverty to find housing and employment. It encouraged Native American families like the Mankillers to move to cities far away from their homelands.

FIG. 13.1

Chief Wilma Mankiller

by Starr Hardridge

Chief Wilma Mankiller, by Starr Hardridge. Wilma Mankiller was the first woman to become deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1983 and principal chief in 1985 after Chief Ross Swimmer resigned. Her involvement in community development projects, such as the Bell Community Revitalization Project, and her commitment to the Cherokee people led to her re-election in 1991.

Courtesy of the Capitol Art Collection, Oklahoma Arts Council.

Termination and Relocation Policy

In the early 1950s, the federal government established termination as the new policy between the federal government and Native nations. Termination lasted until 1970. In 1953, Congress passed House Resolution No. 108, which terminated the status of certain Native Americans as wards, or dependents, of the federal government. It also called for full citizenship for tribal members. Lawmakers wrote the law to target tribes located in California, Texas, Florida, and New York. This change in policy seemed like a step in the direction of self-determination. But it also ended federal government programs that assisted tribes. The policy had the goal of speeding up the assimilation process. The government also wanted to do other things under the policy of termination. They aimed to end protected status for tribal lands, releasing over 3 million acres of reservation land. They wanted to close tribal rolls and sell off tribal assets. They then planned to give the money from these sales to the members of the tribes. Tribes across the nation, including the Peoria, Wyandotte, and Ottawa Nations of Oklahoma, felt the impact of termination policy.

FIG. 13.2

Bureau of Indian Affairs Relocation Brochure

This brochure was distributed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to Native Americans in the 1950s as part of its relocation policy. The BIA encouraged Indigenous people to leave their nations and move to urban areas such as Oklahoma City, Denver, and San Francisco. In response to the BIA’s promises of access to housing and jobs, many Native Americans took the chance and made the move. However, they were met with an overwhelming lack of communal support, social services, and economic opportunity, and many decided to return to their nations after a short period of time.

Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.

At the same time the US government enacted termination, it launched the relocation program, offering incentives for Native Americans to move from rural areas and reservations to big cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Seattle, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa. Officials promised Native families that they could escape the poverty of reservations. They said people could find high-paying jobs and secure housing in cities. They convinced many to pack up all their belongings and leave behind the life they had known.

Native Americans who decided to move had access to funding for relocation. However, the promise of prosperity did not always pan out. Many people who relocated struggled to find jobs. Many lived in poverty. They had no access to traditional support from their reservations and tribal communities. Thus, they often faced homelessness, discrimination, and overall hardship. Many ended up moving back to their reservations. They came back worse off than they were before they left.

The policies of termination and relocation acted jointly. They aimed to encourage the assimilation of Native Americans into the mainstream white culture. The federal government moved Native Americans off their reservations. They terminated tribal protections. The government thought that by dissolving Native reservations, they could sell more land to white Americans. Although some Native families found a way to prosper in the big cities, these policies mostly had dire results for many tribes. By 1970, nearly half the Native American population in the United States lived in urban areas. These programs led to a growing Native American movement called Red Power. Members of this movement demanded justice from the government. The Red Power movement took hold in many urban communities where the federal government had relocated Native Americans.

Mankiller had been raised around other Cherokee children and adults. She hid when she saw white people because she felt like they looked down on her and other Cherokees. She spent much of her childhood playing outside at Mankiller Flats, and it was hard for her to leave. She missed the familiar sounds and smells. San Francisco was a big city on the West Coast, far from Adair County and Cherokee people. Twenty years passed before she returned home to the sounds and smells of Mankiller Flats. And when she did return home, she became part of an important effort in Oklahoma and nationwide to help Indigenous nations get back a lot of rights that had been taken from them.