House Concurrent Resolution 108 (termination policy)

What happened

House Concurrent Resolution 108, passed August 1, 1953, is a statement of congressional policy, not a law that ended any tribe by itself. Its preamble says it is the policy of Congress "as rapidly as possible" to make Indians subject to the same laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities as other citizens, "to end their status as wards of the United States," and to grant them the rights of American citizenship.

The operative part declares it "the sense of Congress" that, "at the earliest possible time," all Indian tribes and their members in California, Florida, New York and Texas, and five named tribes, "should be freed from Federal supervision and control." The named tribes were the Flathead of Montana, the Klamath of Oregon, the Menominee of Wisconsin, the Potawatomi of Kansas and Nebraska, and the Turtle Mountain Chippewa members in North Dakota. Bureau of Indian Affairs offices serving freed tribes should be abolished, and the Secretary of the Interior was to report recommended legislation to Congress by January 1, 1954.

The National Archives says the resolution launched what is called termination: it ended federal recognition of affected tribes, federal services, and the trust status of their reservations, often shifting jurisdiction to states. Public Law 280 followed on August 15, 1953. From 1953 to 1970, the Archives says, Congress began 60 termination proceedings and over three million acres of tribal lands were relinquished. The Nixon administration repudiated termination in 1970, but the Archives calls its effect "devastating for many tribes" nonetheless.

Good to know. A concurrent resolution states Congress's view and does not have the force of law; the actual terminations were done by separate statutes.

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