In 1958 Congress passed a law to dissolve California's rancherias: end their federal status, make their land taxable, and cut services, after first delivering the roads and water it had long promised. It mostly never delivered. The episode covers the California Rancheria Act, the state investigation that found the rancherias unprepared, and the wreckage that set up the reversal to come.
Who's who
- Tillie Hardwick+1 more episodePlaintiff in Hardwick v. United States, the later reversal of termination
Where it happens
- Lytton, Hopland, Pinoleville and other rancherias, CaliforniaNamed in the 1958 Act
- California+30 more episodesState to which Public Law 280 shifted jurisdiction
Timeline
- 1953House Concurrent Resolution 108 and Public Law 280 set the termination course.
- 1957-1958State Senate interim committee finds rancherias unprepared for termination.
- August 18, 1958Public Law 85-671, the California Rancheria Act, is signed.
Still debated
Counts of terminated rancherias do not reconcile: the Act names 41, the BIA says 38 were terminated under it, and another synthesis puts the total at 46.