Past News Items

Regulations to govern the preparation of a roll of members of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma to be used for the distribution of funds awarded by the Indian Claims Commission were published in the Federal Register, August 6, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The Apache, Kiowa and Comanche Tribes were awarded more than $35 million as additional payment for land ceded to the United States by treaties concluded in 1865 and 1867.

WASHINGTON - Department of the Interior Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles said today the Department is gratified by a ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia - a ruling which largely reverses a U.S. District Court injunction issued more than one year ago in the long-running Indian Trust case. Today's ruling is now the third consecutive time that the circuit court has broadly reversed significant rulings by Judge Royce Lamberth in the case.

By 1970, more than 500,000 visitors may be traveling to a new national recreation area in Montana and Wyoming and enjoying the same scenic mountains, canyons, and rivers where an unknown Indian tribe lived in prehistoric times.

The Department of the Interior has announced it favors enactment of Federal legislation which would authorize establishment of the 63,000-acre Big Horn Canyon National Recreation Area surrounding Yellowtail Reservoir in southern Montana and northern Wyoming.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today urged those American Indians who can qualify as members of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin -no matter where they may be living today --to participate in the election of a nine member Menominee Restoration Committee March 2, 1974.

"About 3, 000 Menominee Indians are believed to be living in Wisconsin," Thompson pointed out. "Another 3,000 are believed to be living elsewhere. We hope that all Menominee will help to restore their tribal government - terminated in 1961 - by participating in this election," he said.

WASHINGTON – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today issued a Final Determination in which she declined to acknowledge as an Indian tribe a group known as the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe of Indians headquartered in Trumbull, Conn. The Golden Hill Paugussett petitioning group did not demonstrate that it meets all seven mandatory criteria for Federal acknowledgment as an Indian tribe under Part 83 of Title 25 of the Code of Federal Regulations, “Procedures for Establishing that an American Indian Group Exists as an Indian Tribe.”

One thousand prized eagle feathers - highly important to ceremonial costumes of several Southwest Indian tribes - are en route to Indian reservations through the courtesy of the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service to help alleviate a critical shortage of the adornments, the Department reported today.

The feathers were collected at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland and were sent to the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife Regional office in Albuquerque, N. Mex., for distribution among the tribes.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today that the Department of the Interior has proposed to Congress an amendment of Public Law 280 of the 83d Congress which governs the extension of State criminal and civil jurisdictions to Indian reservations and other similar Indian areas.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs David W. Anderson today announced he has issued a Notice of Proposed Finding to decline to acknowledge that the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa, Inc. (BLB), from Brutus, Mich., a petitioner under the federal acknowledgment process, exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of federal law. The proposed finding is based on a determination that the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa, Inc.

Miss Indian America, Williamette Belle Youpee, spent four days in Washington this week, climaxing a cross-country personal appearance to Highlighting her stopover were meetings with government officials and a tour of the student exhibit of Indian and Eskimo art currently on display in the Department of the Interior's art gallery.

A Sisseton-Yankton Sioux from Poplar, Montana, she is the eldest of 12 children of William Youpee, chairman of the Ft. Peck Assiniboine-Sioux Tribal Council.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – President Bush’s pledge on education that “no child shall be left behind” was reaffirmed today with the release of his Fiscal Year 2002 budget request of $2.2 billion for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).The request includes $292.5 million for BIA school construction – an increase of $162,000 over the 2001 enacted level – of which $122.8 million is to replace six aging BIA school facilities around the country, including the Holbrook Dormitory located in Holbrook, Ariz., on the Navajo reservation.