Past News Items

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson-today announced that applications for enrollment at Intermountain Boarding High School, Brigham City, Utah, will be accepted from members of all tribal groups served by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the past, this Bureau school had been operated solely for Navajos.

WASHINGTON – Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason today announced that the Department of the Interior has declined to acknowledge that a group known as the St. Francis/Sokoki Band of Abenaki located in and around Swanton, Vt., is an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of Martin E. Seneca, Jr., 32, to be Director of Trust Responsibilities, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C., effective May 12, 1974. His post is the second of five directorships - top jobs within the bureau of Indian Affairs - to be filled.

WASHINGTON – Department of the Interior Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason today announced a partnership effort involving the Bureau of Indian Affairs, South Dakota Senator John Thune, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds, and Crow Creek Sioux Tribal Chairman Duane Big Eagle involving an initiative to address the devastating effects of a fire in the Crow Creek school dormitory in Fort Thompson, South Dakota on Sunday, April 24, 2005.

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.

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.”

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.