American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Salish elder Dolly Linsebigler from St. Ignatius, Montana, well remembers the 1950s, when the United States attempted to terminate the Flathead Indian Reservation, where her small hometown is located. That memory is the reason why she emphasizes that the young tribal members need to learn tribal history and traditions: “The young need the chance to be able to say: ‘This is my reservation, I belong here, and I want to learn the history of my people.’” She tries to teach her children and grandchildren to pay attention to the tribal council and tribal affairs. Indian values are important to her. Linsebigler, former Flathead Culture Committee employee and current powwow committee member, believes that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes have to be careful not to become terminated. That Linsebigler and other members of the tribes still fear for the potential loss of federal services, benefits, programs, and treaty rights—even though termination as a federal policy itself was terminate in the course of the 1960s—is the subject of this article. In 1953–54, the Salish and Kootenai tribes of the Flathead Reservation in western Montana successfully resisted congressional bills to terminate the trust status on their lands, federal programs on the reservation, the reservation itself, and, ultimately, the tribes themselves. In the course of the 1970s, self-determination policies replaced the forced assimilation ideology behind termination. However, increasing chances for self-determination—economic independence, political self-government, and decreased federal interference in tribal affairs—did not mean that the threat of termination disappeared from Salish and Kootenai life. This article discusses the tribal reactions to and struggle over the issues of Indian-white conflict, factionalism, and liquidation of tribal assets. It argues that the battle to defeat the federal policy of termination in the 1950s, and the calls for liquidation of tribal assets coming from within the tribes in the 1970s, strengthened the tribal leadership’s resolve to guide the Salish and Kootenai to greater self-determination and take control of their affairs without losing their homelands.