Handbook on Wisconsin Indians

The Governor's Commission on Human Rights first published a guide to Wisconsin Indians in 1952 as an attempted corrective to the confusing and inaccurate information that currently existed. In the years succeeding the original report, federal Indian policy dramatically shifted with the introduction of termination and relocation programs that resulted in, most significantly, the end of federal jurisdiction and recognition of the Menominee as a tribe. Additionally, relocation programs led many Indians to cities where they often traded rural poverty for urban poverty. The Commission completed a new study of Wisconsin Indians in 1966, providing a partial look at the effects of the policies implemented in the 1950s.