“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. As this Salish and Kootenai case study demonstrates, the path to increased self-determination has been neither easy nor simple but shows that a determined and capable tribal government can assert its power in reservation affairs even if it has to battle heavy opposition from outside and
from within its own ranks.”
