| Bureau of Indian Affairs | |
|---|---|
| Logo of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. | |
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | March 11, 1824 |
| Preceding agency | Office of Indian Affairs, United States Department of War |
| Jurisdiction | Federal Government of the United States |
| Headquarters | 1849 C Street, NW Washington, DC 20240 |
| Employees | 8,701 Permanent (FY08) |
| Annual budget | $2.4 billion (FY08) |
| Agency executives | Larry EchoHawk, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Michael R. Smith, Deputy Bureau Director (Field Operation) |
| Parent agency | United States Department of the Interior |
| Website | |
| Bureau of Indian Affairs | |
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of 55,700,000 acres (225,000 km2) of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American Tribes and Alaska Natives.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is one of two bureaus under the jurisdiction of the Assistant Secretary — Indian Affairs: the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education, which provides education services to approximately 48,000 Native Americans.
The BIA’s responsibilities once included providing health care services to American Indians and Alaska Natives. In 1954, that function was legislatively transferred to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, now known as the Department of Health and Human Services, where it has remained to this day as the Indian Health Service (IHS).
Contents |
Located at 1849 C Street, N.W. in Washington, D.C., since May 22, 2009, the BIA is headed by an Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs. The current appointee is Larry EchoHawk, an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma.
The BIA serves the 564 federally recognized tribes through four offices:
First called the Office of Indian Affairs, the agency was created as a division in 1824 within the War Department. Similar agencies had existed in the U.S. government since 1775, when the Second Continental Congress created a trio of Indian-related agencies. Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry were appointed among the early commissioners to negotiate treaties with Native Americans to obtain their neutrality during the American Revolutionary War.
In 1789, the United States Congress placed Native American relations within the newly formed War Department. By 1806, the Congress had created a Superintendent of Indian Trade, within the War Department, who was charged with maintaining the factory trading network of the fur trade. The post was held by Thomas L. McKenney from 1816 until the abolition of the factory system in 1822.
The government licensed traders to have some control in Indian territories and gain a share of the lucrative trade. In 1832 Congress established the position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs. In 1869, Ely Samuel Parker was the first Native American to be appointed as commissioner of Indian affairs.
The abolition of the factory system left a vacuum within the U.S. government regarding Native American relations. The current Bureau of Indian Affairs was formed on March 11, 1824, by Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, who created the agency as a division within his department, without authorization from the United States Congress. He appointed McKenney as the first head of the office, which went by several names. McKenney preferred to call it the "Indian Office", whereas the current name was preferred by Calhoun.
In 1849 Indian Affairs was transferred to the Department of the Interior. The bureau was renamed as Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1947 (from the original Office of Indian Affairs). The Bureau of Indian Affairs has been involved in many controversial policies. One of the most controversial was the late nineteenth-early twentieth century decision to educate native children in separate boarding schools, with an emphasis on assimilation that prohibited them from using their indigenous languages, practices, and cultures. It emphasized being educated to European-American culture.[2] Some were beaten for praying to their own creator god.[3]
With the rise of American Indian activism in the 1960s and 1970s, and increasing demands for enforcement of treaty rights and sovereignty, the 1970s were a particularly turbulent period of BIA history.[4] The rise of activist groups such as the American Indian Movement worried the U.S. Government; the FBI responded both overtly and covertly (by creating COINTELPRO and other programs) to suppress possible uprisings among native peoples.[5][6][7]
As a branch of the U.S. government with personnel on Indian reservations, BIA police were involved in political actions such as: the occupation of BIA headquarters in Washington, D.C. in 1972; the Wounded Knee Incident of 1973, where activists at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation occupied land for more than two months;[8] and the Pine Ridge shootout (for which Leonard Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents).[9]
The BIA was implicated in supporting controversial tribal presidents, notably Dick Wilson, who was charged with being authoritarian; using tribal funds for a private paramilitary force, the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (or "GOON squad"), which he employed against opponents; intimidation of voters in the 1974 election; misappropriation of funds, and other misdeeds. [10] Many native peoples continue to oppose policies of the BIA, particularly problems in enforcing treaties, and handling records and income for trust lands.
On November 3, a group of around 500 American Indians with the American Indian Movement (AIM) took over the (BIA) building in Washington, D.C., the culmination of their Trail of Broken Treaties walk. They intended to bring attention to American Indian issues, including their demands for renewed negotiation of treaties, enforcement of treaty rights and improvement in living standards. They occupied the Department of Interior headquarters from November 3 to November 9, 1972.[11]
Feeling the government was ignoring them, the protesters vandalized the building. After a week, the protesters left, having caused $700,000 in damages. Many records were lost, destroyed or stolen, including irreplaceable treaties, deeds, and water rights records, which some Indian officials said could set the tribes back 50 to 100 years. [2] [3]
The Bureau of Indian Affairs has been sued four times in class action overtime lawsuits brought by the Federation of Indian Service Employees,[12] a union which represents the federal civilian employees of BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs), BIE (Bureau of Indian Education), AS-IA (Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs) and OST (Office of the Special Trustee for Indian Affairs). The Union is represented by the Law Offices of Snider & Associates, LLC,[13] which concentrates in FLSA overtime class actions against the Federal Government and other large employers. The Grievances allege widespread violations of the FLSA [14] and claims tens of millions of dollars in damages.
Cobell vs. Salazar, a major class action case related to trust lands, was settled in December 2009. The suit was filed against the US Department of Interior, of which BIA is part. A major responsibility has been the management of the Indian trust accounts. This was a class-action lawsuit regarding the federal government's management and accounting of more than 300,000 individual American Indian and Alaska Native trust accounts. A settlement fund totaling $1.4 billion is to be distributed to class members. This is to compensate for claims that prior U.S. officials had mismanaged the administration of Indian trust assets. In addition, the settlement establishes a $2 billion fund enabling federally recognized tribes to voluntarily buy-back and consolidate fractionated land interests.[15]
The Bureau is currently trying to evolve from a supervisory to an advisory role; however, this has been a difficult task as the BIA is remembered by many Native Americans as playing a police role in which the U.S. government historically dictated to tribes and their members what they could and could not do in accordance with treaties signed by both.[16]
Commissioners of Indian Affairs[17]
Heads of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Commissioners of Indian Affairs
Assistant Secretaries of the Interior for Indian Affairs[17]
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
![[2]](http://www.maquah.net/Historical/1972/images/72-11-1_justice_charge_indians.jpg){kind=link}
![[3]](http://www.maquah.net/Historical/1972/images/72-11-10_amnesty_denied.jpg){kind=link}