Menominee restoration to reservation status

What happened

The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin was one of a handful of tribes picked for termination in the 1950s, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. A Bureau of Indian Affairs release of April 22, 1975 says that fourteen years earlier the United States terminated its special relationship with the tribe, removed the land from trust status and discontinued federal services. It calls this disastrous for the tribe: the tribal resources, some 200,000 acres of forest land and a sawmill, became subject to taxation, and the tribal corporation set up to hold them ran into financial difficulties.

After years of legislative effort by tribal members, the BIA says, Congress passed legislation signed by the President on December 22, 1973, to restore the tribe to federal status. On April 22, 1975, Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton formally accepted a deed conveying the land to the United States in trust for the tribe, and the tribal land once again became a reservation.

Ada Deer, chairperson of the Menominee Restoration Committee, the tribe's interim governing body, called the transfer plan "the epitome of Indian self-determination." She said, "It gives the tribe Federal protection without Federal domination." The Secretary also signed documents shifting responsibility for the corporation's bonds to the tribe, giving the tribe management authority over its properties and business, and approving a plan for a tribal enterprise.

Wisconsin Public Radio notes the restoration came after many Native people protested the termination policy and that Ada Deer was a fierce advocate for the tribe.

Good to know. The 200,000 acres is the BIA's 1975 approximate wording, not a surveyed total.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error