Tribal Termination Essays

The Termination of Grand Ronde was an act which was never agreed upon by the tribe even though it was assumed that that the tribe had agreed. In this dissertation I lay out the history of federal Indian policies that led to termination as national policy, and then address how Grand Ronde specifically was treated by federal officials during termination. This is not specifically a history, but an analysis of federal Indian policy regarding the tribes from the 1850’s to the 1950’s. History of how all of this came about is extremely important as termination was not a stand-alone event but a progression of many Indian issues in the United States.

The dissertation is now ten years old and has been extremely helpful toward understanding how termination effected tribes and continues to affect and even guide tribal policies today. Many people, both Native and non-native knew/know little or nothing about termination in Oregon, previous to this dissertation. It has been a struggle to have people accept the events laid out in this research over the past ten years, and surprisingly enough, the brunt of resistance has been on the part of tribal members subjected to the effects of termination. People like to believe what they were told by family members and elders, and in general that works, but specifically, its necessary to find actual records and compare these records to what we know about our histories to really find the truth. Regardless, whether you truly believe what I have written, termination was a horrible colonial policy which sought to finally relieve all tribes of their sovereign rights to their lands, resources, and identities, and complete the project began with Columbus and European colonization of the New World.

The version below is my draft from early 2007, Then I was told it was too long and too repetitive. I edited over 100 pages from this version to create the final dissertation for graduation in 2008.

The chapters: