<p>Since George Washington, the President has had principal influence in government policy toward Native American nations. The nation's record is not generally a proud one but some presidents have dealt more honorably than others. </p>
Scoring the Presidents on Integrity and Humanity in Dealing with Native American Nations historynewsnetwork.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from historynewsnetwork.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Wrestling With the New Deal
The programs Roosevelt put together may not have met a Platonic ideal of modern progress, but they saved American democracy itself.
AP Photo
When we fight over the New Deal, we are really arguing about the very meaning of America.
In 2014, an up-and-coming writer named Ta-Nehisi Coates made a landmark case for reparations in
The Atlantic, which took aim at, among other targets, one of the most revered figures in the liberal pantheon: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Detailing the failures of New Deal housing policy for Black America, Coates told readers that âRooseveltâs New Deal, much like the democracy that produced it, rested on the foundation of Jim Crow.â
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The Indian Termination Act of 1953 and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 were conservative reactions to the liberal reforms of Franklin Roosevelt’s Indian New Deal of the 1930s. The laws of the 1950s were designed to break up the Reservations and relocate Native peoples into urban areas. In addition, they gave Congress plenary power, or absolute authority to force compliance on Native peoples without negotiation.
At the top of the list for termination was the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin, largely because of its wealth in forest land. In 1954, Congress passed an act officially terminating the Menominee as a federally recognized tribe. Termination was initially set for 1958 but extensions pushed it forward to 1961. Once it happened, Termination was an unmitigated disaster and only increased poverty and hardship among the Menominee.