Bureau of Indian Affairs

Organization

Located at 1849 C Street, NW, in Washington, D.C., the BIA is headed by a bureau director who reports to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. The current director is Michael S. Black. The current assistant secretary (acting) is Lawrence S. Roberts, an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. On January 1, 2016, Roberts succeeded Kevin K. Washburn, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, who served from October 9, 2012, to December 31, 2015.

The BIA serves the 567 federally recognized tribes through four offices:

The Office of Indian Services: operates the BIA’s general assistance, disaster relief, Indian child welfare, tribal government, Indian Self-Determination, and Indian Reservation Roads Program.

The Office of Justice Services (OJS): directly operates or funds law enforcement, tribal courts, and detention facilities on federal Indian lands. OJS funded 208 law enforcement agencies, consisting of 43 BIA-operated police agencies, and 165 tribally operated agencies under contract, or compact with the OJS. The office has seven areas of activity: Criminal Investigations and Police Services, Detention/Corrections, Inspection/Internal Affairs, Tribal Law Enforcement and Special Initiatives, the Indian Police Academy, Tribal Justice Support, and Program Management. The OJS also provides oversight and technical assistance to tribal law enforcement programs when and where requested. It operates four divisions: Corrections, Drug Enforcement, the Indian Police Academy, and Law Enforcement.

The Office of Trust Services: works with tribes and individual American Indians and Alaska Natives in the management of their trust lands, assets, and resources.

The Office of Field Operations: oversees 12 regional offices; Alaska, Great Plains, Northwest, Southern Plains, Eastern, Navajo, Pacific, Southwest, Eastern Oklahoma, Midwest, Rocky Mountain, and Western; and 83 agencies, which carry out the mission of the Bureau at the tribal level.

Early US agencies and legislation: Intercourse Acts

Agencies to relate to Native Americans 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.

Office of Indian Trade (1806–1822)

In 1789, the U.S. Congress placed Native American relations within the newly formed War Department. By 1806 the Congress had created a Superintendent of Indian Trade, or "Office 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.

Bureau of Indian Affairs (1824–present)

The abolition of the factory system left a vacuum within the U.S. government regarding Native American relations. The 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 1832 Congress established the position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs. In 1849 Indian Affairs was transferred to the U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1869, Ely Samuel Parker was the first Native American to be appointed as commissioner of Indian affairs.

One of the most controversial policies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs was the late 19th to early 20th 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. Some were beaten for praying to their own creator god.

20th century

The bureau was renamed from Office of Indian Affairs to Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947.

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. The rise of activist groups such as the American Indian Movement (AIM) 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.

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: On November 3, 1972 a group of around 500 American Indians with the AIM took over the BIA building, 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.

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.

The Wounded Knee Incident of 1973, where activists at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation occupied land for more than two months.

The Pine Ridge shootout (for which Leonard Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents).

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. Many native peoples continue to oppose policies of the BIA, particularly problems in enforcing treaties, and handling records and income for trust lands.

21st century

In 2013 the Bureau was greatly affected by sequestration funding cuts of $800 million, which particularly affected the already-underfunded Indian Health Service.

This Association was referenced in Sherman Alexie's 2007 novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian

Employee overtime

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has been sued four times in class action overtime lawsuits brought by the Federation of Indian Service Employees, a union which represents the federal civilian employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education, the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs and the Office of the Special Trustee for Indian Affairs. The union is represented by the Law Offices of Snider & Associates, LLC, which concentrates in FLSA overtime class actions against the federal government and other large employers. The grievances allege widespread violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act and claims tens of millions of dollars in damages.

Trust assets

Cobell vs. Salazar, a major class action case related to trust lands, was settled in December 2009. The suit was filed against the U.S. Department of Interior, of which the 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 $3.4 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.

Mission

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 known 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.

Commissioners and Assistant Secretaries

Commissioners and Assistant Secretaries of Indian Affairs include:

Heads of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

1824–1830 Thomas L. McKenney

1830–1831 Samuel S. Hamilton

Commissioners of Indian Affairs

1832–1836 Elbert Herring

1836–1838 Carey A. Harris

1838–1845 Thomas Hartley Crawford

1845–1849 William Medill

1849–1850 Orlando Brown

1850–1853 Luke Lea

1853–1857 George Washington Manypenny

1857–1858 James W. Denver

1858–1858 Charles E. Mix

1858–1859 James W. Denver

1859–1861 Alfred B. Greenwood

1861–1865 William P. Dole

1865–1866 Dennis N. Cooley

1866–1867 Lewis V. Bogy

1867–1869 Nathaniel G. Taylor

1869–1871 Ely S. Parker

1871–1872 Francis A. Walker

1873–1875 Edward Parmelee Smith

1875–1877 John Q. Smith

1877–1880 Ezra A. Hayt

1880–1881 Rowland E. Trowbridge

1881–1885 Hiram Price

1885–1888 John D. C. Atkins

1888–1889 John H. Oberly

1889–1893 Thomas Jefferson Morgan

1893–1897 Daniel M. Browning

1897–1904 William Arthur Jones

1904–1909 Francis E. Leupp

1909–1913 Robert G. Valentine

1913–1921 Cato Sells

1921–1929 Charles H. Burke

1929–1933 Charles J. Rhoads

1933–1945 John Collier

1945–1948 William A. Brophy

1948–1949 William R. Zimmerman (acting)

1949–1950 John R. Nichols

1950–1953 Dillon S. Myer

1953–1961 Glenn L. Emmons

1961 John O. Crow (acting)

1961–1966 Philleo Nash

1966–1969 Robert L. Bennett

1969–1972 Louis R. Bruce

1973–1976 Morris Thompson

1976–1977 Dr. Benjamin Reifel

Assistant Secretaries of the Interior for Indian Affairs

1977–1978 Forrest Gerard

1979–1981 William E. Hallett

1981–1984 Kenneth L. Smith

1985–1989 Ross Swimmer

1989–1993 Eddie Frank Brown

1993–1997 Ada E. Deer

1997–2001 Kevin Gover

2001–2001 James H. McDivitt (acting)

2001–2003 Neal A. McCaleb

2003–2004 Aurene M. Martin (acting)

2004–2005 Dave Anderson

2005–2007 Jim Cason (acting)

2007–2008 Carl J. Artman

2008–2009 George T. Skibine (acting)

2009–2012 Larry Echo Hawk

2012-2012 Donald "Del" Laverdure (acting)

2012–2015 Kevin K. Washburn

2016-present Lawrence S. Roberts (acting)

Additional reading

Belko, William S. "'John C. Calhoun and the Creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs: An Essay on Political Rivalry, Ideology, and Policymaking in the Early Republic," South Carolina Historical Magazine 2004 105(3): 170–97. ISSN 0038-3082

Cahill, Cathleen D. Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869–1933 (U of North Carolina Press, 2011) 368 pp. online review

Deloria, Jr., Vine, and David E. Wilkins, Tribes, Treaties, & Constitutional Tribulations (Austin, 1999)

Jackson, Helen H. A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the U. S. Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes (1881) online edition

Leupp, F. E. The Indian and His Problem (1910) online edition

Meriam, Lewis, et al., The Problem of Indian Administration, Studies in Administration, 17 (Baltimore, 1928)

Pevar, Stephen L. The Rights of Indians and Tribes (Carbondale, 2002)

Prucha, Francis P. Atlas of American Indian Affairs (Lincoln, 1990)

Prucha, Francis P. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Abridged Edition 1986) excerpt and text search

Schmeckebier, L. F. Office of Indian Affairs: History, Activities,and Organization, Service Monograh 48 (Baltimore 1927)

Sutton, I. "Indian Country and the Law: Land Tenure, Tribal Sovereignty, and the States," ch. 36 in Law in the Western United States, ed. G. M. Bakken (Norman, 2000)

Primary sources

Francis P. Prucha, ed. Documents of United States Indian Policy (3rd ed. 2000) excerpt and text search