In the 1970s the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma mounted a sustained campaign to overturn the 1956 federal termination law that barred the Ottawa from accessing federal programs for Indian people. Rising federal support for tribal self-determination, the Menominee campaign restoration, and a range of practical incentives created both motive and urgency for Ottawa reinstatement.

Two Ottawa leaders stood at the center of the restoration drive: Second Chief Charles Dawes (Nanokeesis) and Chief Lewis Barlow (Ani-me-kee). Dawes became the public voice of the campaign. He testified in 1976 before Task Force 10 of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, and framed Ottawa restoration as a matter of correcting “a grave, modern, 20th-century injustice.”

As chief during the restoration campaign, Barlow spearheaded the political effort. He successfully solicited support letters from a range of politicians and government officials, and he coordinated closely with Robert Alexander as tribal business manager, John Ghostbear as tribal attorney, and the leaders of the other terminated tribes of Ottawa County. This group worked with the staff of Senator Dewey Bartlett to devise model legislation and shepherd it through Congress.

In 1977, Barlow appeared before a Senate hearing on the reinstatement bill, and he summed up the Ottawa position in one line: “We are not asking for a handout. We just want to be recognized as Indians.” The actual congressional debate was minimal. Legislation restoring four terminated tribes of Ottawa County overwhelmingly passed Congress, and President Jimmy Carter signed the bill on May 15, 1978.

The Ottawa celebration at the Quapaw longhouse days later made clear what the campaign had accomplished, and Charles Dawes delivered the keynote address entitled “Now the Death Song Can Stop.”