Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today said he will send a representative of his office to Kansas City, Kansas, to participate in a hearing to be held soon by the House Subcommittee on Indian Affairs on bills affecting the future status of the community's controversial Huron Cemetery. The date for the hearing ill be announced later.

Subcommittee Chairman James A. Haley, who will conduct the hearing, invited the Secretary to send a representative.

The Department of the Interior announced today that it has taken joint action with the Department of Agriculture in designating 11 units of the Klamath Indian Forest in Oregon to be offered for sale over & period of about 16 months starting sometime after April 1.

The two Departments have also agreed upon specifications and minimum require9nts for sustained-yield management of the units which must be followed by purchasers under provisions of the Klamath Termination Act of 1954, as amended.

Trust restrictions on allotted Indian lands, scheduled to expire in calendar year 1959, have been extended for an additional five years, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today.

The order reverses a custom, started in 1951, of limiting such extensions to a maximum of only one year. In 1951, the then Acting Secretary was considering terminating trust status on individual Indian lands on a year-by-year basis. Each trust case would be subject to review every year.

Enrollment of American Indians for education beyond high school has more than doubled in the past six years and Indian tribes are now spending over half a million dollars annually from their own funds on scholarship aids for their young people, the Department of the Interior reported today.

In the 1954-55 academic year approximately 2,300 Indian boys and girls attended college or advanced vocational school. In the 1960-61 academic year, which ended last June, reports from the reservations indicate that the number was almost 4900, or more than twice as many as six years before.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced plans for converting the 480-pupil Federal Indian boarding school at Santa Fe, New Mexico, into an Institute of American Indian Arts by the fall of 1962.

Planned to accommodate eventually as many as 500 students, the new Institute will provide a full high school course and two post-high school years. It will enroll youths of one-fourth or more Indian blood from all parts of the country who show special aptitudes in a wide variety of creative arts.

A "new trail" for Indians leading to equal citizenship, maximum self-sufficiency, and full participation in American life was endorsed today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

Secretary Udall endorsed the "new trail" approach in announcing the completion of a 77-page report by a Task Force on Indian Affairs which he appointed earlier in February.

"Preparing the new trail will require the collaboration of the Indians, State and local governments, and the American people," Secretary Udall said.

Award of a $69,451.06 contract for construction of additional irrigation works that will bring water to about 750 acres now unirrigated on the Pine River Project of the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Albuquerque, N.M. – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs John Tahsuda delivered remarks at Interior Days during the 2018 Annual Tribal Self-Governance Consultation Conference, celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Tribal Self-Governance, held at the Albuquerque Convention Center. This year’s conference registration peaked around 900 attendees.

Secretary Zinke welcomed conference attendees via videoconference:

The five-man task force now studying the organization and programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs will hold a series of meetings with Indian tribal representatives at seven key points throughout the western half of the country starting March 20, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

PARIS, France – U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell met today with French Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira to express the United States' concern about tribal sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony that are sold at French auction houses, and to seek cooperation in working to repatriate objects to Indian tribes in the United States.