Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs will continue for the present operating its two area offices in Oklahoma at Muskogee and Anadarko.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of the Obama Administration’s Generation Indigenous (“GenI”) initiative to remove barriers standing between Native youth and their opportunity to succeed, Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Kevin K.

The LaPointe Indian Cemetery, burial place of the Chippewa Chief Great Buffalo, has been listed in The National Register of Historic Places, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

The cemetery is located on Madeline Island, in Lake Superior off the coast of Wisconsin. The property is held in trust by the United States for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.

In moving to take over the management of Alaska Native Industries Cooperative Association, Seattle, Wash., during recent weeks, the Department of the Interior has acted to protect the financial interests of the United States and the operating interests of stores of the native villages of Alaska, Secretary Douglas McKay said today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced today that the Miccosukee Indian School (MIS) has received flexibility from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), to use a different definition of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) that meets their students’ unique academic and cultural needs. The Miccosukee Indian School in Florida is funded by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education (BIE).

J. Kenneth Adams, a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Agency at Sisseton, South Dakota.

Adams has been the Administrative Officer at the agency. He has been serving as the acting superintendent for the past ten months.

The aim of the present Administration in the field of Indian affairs is not to "detribalize" the Indian or deprive him of his identity but to give him a wider range of choice and a greater opportunity for fulfilling his own potentialities than he has previously enjoyed, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay emphasized today in making public a letter he wrote November 30 to Oliver La Farge, president of the Association on American Indian Affairs, Inc.

WASHINGTON – Today, Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn issued for public comment a proposed rule designed to demonstrate the Administration’s commitment to restoring tribal homelands and furthering economic development on Indian reservations. The proposed rule will provide for greater notice of land-into-trust decisions and clarify the mechanisms for judicial review depending on whether the land is taken into trust by the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, or by an official of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it plans to distribute more than $14 million to the Absentee Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma and the Cherokee Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma on September 15, 1977.

The money was awarded to the Delawares by the Indian Claims Commission as compensation for land taken by the United States in violation of an 1854 treaty.

The proposed regulations for preparing a roll of Alaska Natives eligible to share in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of December 18, 1971, were issued today by Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton.

Louis R. Bruce, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, pointed out that the Native Claims Act provides for settlement of awards totaling $962.5 million and 40 million acres of land, and ends a struggle which had been pending since the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867.

"Alaska Natives" who may be eligible for enrollment must be: