Native American Relocation Program

Tribes affected: Pantribal

Significance: Though the relocation program launched by the U.S. government in the 1950’s did not achieve its goal of assimilation, it did contribute to the rapid urbanization of Native Americans

The 1930’s saw a departure in federal Indian policy from the usual goal of assimilating Indians into the mainstream of American society; instead, the “Indian New Deal” stressed the idea of tribal self-determination. After World War II, however, Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) began to press for a return to assimilation. In the early 1950’s several assimilationist policies emerged: termination, which sought to “free” Native Americans by dissolving their tribes; the assumption by the states of more legal jurisdiction over Indian communities; and relocation, which sought to move Indians to large cities. Although at the time termination gained the most attention, relocation proved more persistent and had the more lasting effect.

Planning and Implementation

The BIA began its relocation efforts on a small scale in 1948, with efforts to place Navajos, whose reservation was believed to be overcrowded, in western cities. In 1952 the program was expanded into the national Voluntary Relocation Program. Offices were established on most reservations and in Oklahoma. BIA agents working on a quota system employed a hard-sell approach as they pressured Indians to relocate. Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver were first designated to receive the new urban dwellers; seven other western and midwestern cities were later added to the list. Indians were sometimes sent to more distant cities on purpose in the hope that distance would lessen tribal ties.

Indians volunteering for the program were given a month to prepare for the transition. When the time came, they were given one-way bus or train tickets, fifty dollars each to cover moving expenses, and modest sums for subsistence. Once arrived in their new home cities, they received help from the local relocation office in finding housing and employment and a month’s financial assistance (forty dollars a week for an individual or couple).

Urban Problems

The experience of many participants in the program often ended in frustration. Most reservation Indians were poorly prepared for life in urban America. Coming from cultures that were communal and cooperative, many found it hard to adjust to the impersonal and competitive character of metropolitan life. The BIA often provided little job training and inadequate counseling. Many urban Indians found that they could obtain only menial or temporary jobs. Too often, those relocating found themselves becoming slum dwellers cut off from family and friends. Alcoholism became a particular problem. The death in 1955 of war hero Ira Hayes, a Pima whose life was shattered by despair and alcoholism after he was relocated to Chicago, brought attention to the problems often faced by the new urban Indians. By 1959, a third of those participating in the program had returned to the reservation.

The BIA attempted to respond to mounting criticism of the program. Relocation officials began to moderate their sales pitches in the later 1950’s, and more attention was given to preparing participants prior to departure. The program continued to attract criticism, however, and many Native Americans closely associated it with the widely hated policy of termination. After the latter policy was ended in 1962, relocation continued. During the John F. Kennedy Administration, the program’s name and focus was changed to one of employment assistance. More attention was paid to job training, and more of an effort was made to place Indians in cities closer to their reservations.

Impact of Relocation

As a program to foster the assimilation of Indians into American society, relocation largely failed to achieve its aim. Yet, in other ways, some of them paradoxical, the program had important influences on Native American life.

The most evident effect of the program was to foster one of the most important Indian demographic trends of the second half of the twentieth century: urbanization. Despite the difficulties they encountered, Indians continued to move to urban areas. In 1940 only about 7 percent of Indians lived in cities; by 1980 almost half did, and by 1990 a majority lived in metropolitan areas. There is some irony in the fact that the majority of Indians who moved to cities did so on their own and not as program participants, largely because of suspicion of the BIA and the tendency to associate relocation with termination. The relocation program, however, did contribute to this informal migration. More than thirty-five thousand Indians relocated under the program, and the cities to which they moved (the ones with relocation offices) became the main centers of Native American urbanization.

Regardless of whether they were program participants, urban Indians continued to have more than their share of social problems. They also tended to be less tolerant of substandard conditions and more critical of government policies than reservation Indians. It is not surprising that many of the leaders of the more radical Indian movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s had urban backgrounds. Moreover, urbanization contributed to the growth of pan-Indianism. By bringing together Indians of many different tribal backgrounds, the relocation program encouraged interaction among them and the discovery that they shared many problems. It may be the greatest irony of relocation that this assimilationist program fostered instead a greater sense of Indian separateness and encouraged a more activist and confrontational attitude toward the federal government.

Bibliography

Burt, Larry W. Tribalism in Crisis: Federal Indian Policy, 1953-61. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982.

Fixico, Donald L. Termination and Relocation: Federal Policy, 1945-1966. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.

Olson, James S., and Raymond Wilson. Native Americans in the Twentieth Century. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1984.

Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. 2 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.

Sorkin, Alan L. The Urban American Indian. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1978.

Weddell, Jack O., and O. Michael Watson, eds. The Indian in Urban Society. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.