The Termination policy
In 1943 the US government surveyed the living conditions of Native American people on reservations, and what they found was horrific. The Native people were living in extreme poverty. The government's answer to this poverty was to introduce a "Termination Policy" which would, supposedly, integrate the American Indian people into american culture. This was done by taking the land from tribes and getting rid of their tribal status, essentially taking away whatever little they still had.