Federal Indian Policy

This groundbreaking work is the first major study of United States Indian policy during the landmark years of the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies. Although both men favoured new policies that would have fostered the survival of American Indian cultures and heritages, they faced opposition from western senators who insisted on carrying out the so-called termination policies that had been initiated by Congress as early as the late 1940s. These policies, generally designed to bring to a close the federal government's administrative responsibility for American Indian tribes, led to such controversial practices as forced urban relocations of American Indians and redistribution of tribal assets in ways that received widespread criticism. Opposition to termination policy in the Kennedy/Johnson years, meanwhile, heralded an unprecedented explosion of American Indian political activism and political power through public-awareness campaigns and lobbying on both the local and national fronts.