Termination's Legacy

This is the story of how the Federal policy of Termination irrevocably affected the lives of a group of mixed-blood Ute Indians who made their home on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation in Utah. Following World War II many Native American communities were strongly encouraged to terminate their status as wards of the Federal government and develop greater economic and political power for themselves. During this era, the rights of many Native communities came under siege, and some were terminated; most of the latter eventually regained tribal status and federal recognition in subsequent decades. But not all did. The mixed-blood Utes fell outside of the formal categories of classification by the Federal government; they did not meet the essentialist expectations of some in the Mormon Church; and their regaining of tribal status potentially would have threatened those already classified as such on the reservation. Skillfully weaving together interviews and extensive archival research, R. Warren Metcalf traces the steps that led to the termination of the mixed-blood Utes, and shows how and why this particular group of Native Americans was never formally recognized as "Indian" again. Their repeated failure to regain their tribal status throws into relief the key and volatile issue of identity--what it means to be an Indian--then and today for full and mixed-blood Native Americans, the Federal government, and the powerful religious organization of the Mormon Church in Utah. Termination's Legacy will enrich our understanding of the challenges faced by those Native Americans who threaten to slip out of sight in today's world. R. Warren Metcalf is an assistant professor of history at the University of Oklahoma.