P
Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. The ranchers fight
the tax in federal court, where their lawyer angrily
claims the Lakota are behaving like a “foreign na-
tion.” Judge George T. Mickelson agrees, maintaining
they have every right to do so. Finding for the Lakota,
he states that Indian tribes are “sovereign powers and
as sovereign powers can levy taxes.”
March 10
The Dalles Dam destroys Celilo Falls.
Construction on the Dalles Dam on the Columbia
River floods the ancient spiritual and trading center
at Celilo Falls. For thousands of years, this area has
been sacred to many northwestern Indian groups, in-
cluding the Umatilla, Nez Perce, Yakama, and Warm
Springs Indians. Destroyed as well are important
fishing sites guaranteed to these groups by treaty.
“The Pacific Northwest is re-
nowned for its natural beauty
and livability, but the riches of
our homeland are being spent
without conscience or regard
for its long history of its peo-
ple.... The unconscionable
drowning of Wyam—Celilo
Falls—marks a crucial point
in our collective history. It de-
stroyed a major cultural site
and rent a multi-millennial
relationship of a people to a
place.... It was like a mother,
nourishing us, and is remem-
bered as a place of great
peace.”
—Warm Springs–Wasco-Navajo
poet Elizabeth Woody on the
cultural meaning of the flooding
of Celilo FallsJune 7Congress passes the Lumbee Recognition
Act.
After years of requests for acknowledgment from
the federal government, the Lumbee Indians of
North Carolina are formally recognized by an act
of Congress. The act, however, specifically bars the
Lumbee from receiving federal funds and services
offered to other tribes. The legislation will prompt
a series of legal battles, through which the Lumbee
and other North Carolina groups will seek the full
benefits of recognition.1957The U.S. government rejects a petition to
create a reservation at Hill 57.
Senator James E. Murray of Montana launches
an unsuccessful campaign to persuade the federal
government to declare “Hill 57” in Great Falls
a reservation. This Indian community, named
after a nearby billboard that advertises 57 variet-
ies of pickles, was settled in the 1940s by landless
Cree, Ojibway, and Métis, who came to Great
Falls looking for wage work. Poor and homeless,
many squatted in Hill 57 in squalid conditions
that came to symbolize the poverty of the many
Indians driven to cities by the Relocation and
Termination policies. The United States rejects
Murray’s petition, maintaining that the squatters
should return to their reservations or relocate to
other urban areas.The Indian Vocational Training Act
is passed.
Through the Indian Vocational Training Act, Con-
gress authorizes the creation of job training centers
near reservations and in some cities. The centers
are to provide free vocational education to Indi-
ans to help prepare them for jobs in urban areas.
Many unemployed Indians, even those resisting
relocation to cities, welcome the opportunity to
train for trades.