OPA

The Department of the Interior today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has terminated supervision of three Indian rancherias in California, under the provisions of the Rancheria Act of August 18, 1958 (P.L. 85-671), as amended.

The rancherias, which are actually small tracts of Indian land under Federal trust, are: Scotts Valley Rancheria, a 56.6 acre tract in Lake County; Robinson Rancheria, 168 acres in Lake County; and Guidiville Rancheria, 244 acres in Mendocino County.

The 1958 Act called for distribution of rancheria assets to Indian owners and termination of Federal services they receive solely because of their status as Indians. Upon termination the same laws will apply to the Indians that apply to other citizens residing in the State.

There are 145 Indians who will share in the distribution of assets for the three rancherias.

Of the 41 rancherias named in the original 1958 Act, 17 were terminated previously.

Termination becomes effective upon publication of a notice in the Federal Register, scheduled for this week.

The Department of the Interior has issued an administrative order restoring to the San Carlos Apache Tribe full ownership of, approximately 200,000 acres of land known as the "mineral strip," ceded to the Government in 1896.

The land, lying along the southern border of the tribe's Arizona reservation, was ceded by the tribe with the understanding that the Government would supervise mineral recovery on the lands and return all mineral revenues to the tribe.

However, because of insignificant financial returns to the Indians and the tribe's desire to have the land returned, the strip was closed to further mineral patents in 1934 and all mineral rights were returned to the tribe by Secretarial action in 1963.

The restoration order followed a recommendation by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett. The order excludes lands already patented or to which there are other valid existing rights.

The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs announced steps are being taken to implement a ,new law which
provides for payment to the Southern Paiute Indians for lands taken from them in 1860. Regulations are being amended to permit
preparation of a tribal roll.

An Act of October 17, 1968, authorized the distribution of funds derived from a judgment by the Indian Claims Commission,
and directed the Department to prepare a roll to serve as a basis for paying the money.

Southern Paiutes who will share in the $7,253,165.19 judgment are those born on or before and living on October 17,
1968, who establish affiliation with the Southern Paiute Nation through rolls of the Kaibab, Moapa, Shivwits, Kanosh, Koosharem,
Indian Peaks, Cedar City, and Las Vegas Bands or other documents satisfactory to the Secretary of the Interior. The members of
these bands are primarily located in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.

The award represents payment for almost 26 1/2 million acres of land in southwestern Utah, southeastern Nevada, and an
adjacent small area in California, taken from the Southern Paiutes in 1860.

Persons desiring to be enrolled to share in the funds, may file applications with the Area Director,' Bureau of Indian Affairs,
P.O. Box 7007, 'Phoenix, Ariz. 85011. Applications must be postmarked no later than June 30, 1969.

Funds to cover the award were appropriated by Congress April 30, 1965.

The Department of the Interior said today a petition from the combined tribal councils of the Ute Mountain and Southern Ute Indian Tribes that the Bureau of Indian Affairs split up the Consolidated Ute Agency at Ignacio, Colo., into the Ute Mountain Agency, Towaoc, Colo., and the Southern Ute Agency, Ignacio, Colo., has been approved.

No additional funds or employees will be needed to accomplish the changes. The division into two separate agencies will give both of the Ute tribes better service, Bureau of Indian Affairs officials said. The change was made effective December 29.

The Ute Mountain Agency will have a staff of 15 permanent positions, of which five will service the Southern Ute Agency on request.

The Ute Mountain Agency will serve a population of 1,068 Indians who have tribal trust lands in Colorado, 448,029 acres; in New Mexico, 107,520 acres; and in Utah, 2,328 acres. There are an additional 9,458 acres of Ute individually owned trust lands in Utah.

Espeedie G. Ruiz, who has been assistant superintendent in charge at Towaoc since July, 1967, is the new superintendent of the Ute Mountain Agency.

Raymond J. deKay will continue as superintendent at Ignacio, of the new Southern Ute Agency.

The Southern Ute Agency will service a population of 757 Indians, with 299,443 acres of tribal trust land and 4,967 acres of individually owned trust land in Colorado. This agency also will provide some services to the Ute Mountain Agency, such as plant maintenance when required.

The Southern Ute Agency will have a staff of 67 permanent positions, including 29 people in school dormitory operations at Ignacio.

Regulations governing the preparation of rolls for the payment to Creek Indians of two Indian Claims Commission judgments, totaling
more than $4 million, have been approved and published in the Federal Register, Robert L. Bennett, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, has announced.

Those eligible to share in the awards must be able to prove direct Creek Indian lineage, Bennett said. A list of the various tribal
rolls and other acceptable proofs of such lineage plus complete application instructions will be supplied with application forms which may be obtained from the Area Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Federal Building, Muskogee, Okla., 74401.

Bennett emphasized that the deadline for filing is Dec. 31, 1969 and that there is no fee for any part of the application procedure.

One award, $3.9 million less attorney's fees and other expenses, represents payment for 8.9 million acres of land in southern
Alabama and Georgia ceded the Federal Government under a treaty in 1814.

A second award, of $1 million less expenses, is additional payment for two million acres of land in east central Oklahoma ceded
under the Treaty of Aug. 7, 1856. Only descendants of Creeks removed to Oklahoma early in the 19th Century may share in this award.

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of Federal legislation to provide for disposition of a $29.1 million award to the Mission Indians, the Pitt River Indians, and certain other eligible Indians of California to be identified later should a bill be passed by Congress.

The judgment was made by the Indian Claims Commission and represents additional compensation for lands in California to which the Indians involved held aboriginal title and which were taken by the United States March 3, 1853.

Funds to cover the award were appropriated by Congress in 1964 and are on deposit in the United States Treasury, drawing four percent interest.

As proposed, the bill would also authorize the Secretary of the Interior to prepare a roll and make a per capita distribution to those Indians concerned in this judgment. A roll of Indians of California listing 36,094 names of persons living on May 24, 1950 may be used in preparing the new judgment rolls.

Under the bill, as recommended by Interior, those who apply for enrollment must be living on the date it becomes law; and must present proof that their name or that of an ancestor appeared on anyone of the previous California Indian rolls prepared pursuant to the Act of May 18, 1928; or must establish descent from an Indian ancestor residing in California on July 1, 1852, prior to taking of the land by the United States.

Ineligible to share under the terms of the award are those whose Indian ancestry is derived solely from the Northern Paiute, Southern Paiute, Mohave, Quechan (Yuma'), Chemehuevi, Shoshone, Washoe, Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin Band of Snakes, groups sometimes considered in the past to be Indians of California.

Those whose Indian ancestry is derived partly from one of the groups listed and partly from other Indians of California may elect to share in judgment awards to one or the other, but not both.

The Department said the $29.1 million award should not be confused with a $5 million award made in 1944 by the Court of Claims in favor of the Indians of California. The proposed legislation also provides for distribution of more than $1 million remaining from the 1944 award after a $150 per capita distribution was completed June 30, 1955.

RECOLD CORPORATION TO OPEN OKLAHOMA PLANT

There will be a new source of employment for Cherokee Indians in the Pryor, Oklahoma, area when Recold Corporation opens a branch plant, scheduled for immediate construction there. The new plant will hire 25 workers initially, increasing to 75 employees within a year and one-half. Company officials plan to negotiate an on-the-job training contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to prepare Indian workers for employment in the plant.

Recold, a Los Angeles manufacturer of commercial refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat exchange equipment, plans to manufacture finned tubing at Pryor. The finning process adds additional steel insulation to steel tubing, a product used in oil field equipment and heat exchange equipment.

The new plant will be housed in a 50,000-square-foot building, to be erected on a 60-acre tract seven miles southeast of Pryor. Selection of the site was the result of combined efforts by the company, community leaders, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the State Department of Commerce and Industry.

WEST COAST TIMBER INDUSTRIES EMPLOY MORE INDIANS

Indian employment in timber industries located on or near the Pacific Coast Reservations has more than doubled in the past five years, according to a recent report from the Portland Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Today, there are about 690 Indians employed in timber activities and mill work, while in 1960 there were a few more than 300. Preliminary reports indicate that there is increased Indian employment in other forested areas.

OPERATION "PETER PIPER" ON SCHEDULE AT ISLETA

Isleta Pueblo, an Indian community just south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the pickle business.

The C &S Packing Company at Isleta has been receiving the 1965 cucumber crop from five growing areas in the State and stowing it away in brine vats for pickle production beginning in September. The plant, which started construction in May, will eventually have 80 wooden curing tanks with a total capacity of 400,000 bushels of cucumbers. Financed by a combination of Federal, private, and tribal funds, C &S is due to employ 45 Indians at the outset, increasing that number to 135 when full capacity is reached. Established with the aid of industrial development specialists in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the enterprise also provides area employment and income indirectly, through crop production for sale to the packing company.

ALASKA NATIVES ATTEND FIVE WEEK CLASS

It was back to school again for a group of 18 Alaska Native plant maintenance men recently. The group, employees of BIA's Juneau Area Office, attended a five-week course at Mt. Edgecumbe that ended with presentation of diplomas from the Interior Department and the State of Alaska.

The trainees participated in "Learning-by-doing" demonstrations and received standard classroom instruction in a variety of subjects geared to improving their chances for job promotion. Some of their classes included basic radio maintenance, meter reading, maintenance and repair of diesel motors for power plants, principles of an electrical circuit, care and use of electrical and other hand tools, and basic building maintenance.

While qualifying for Disaster Training completion certificates, they heard Bureau safety personnel discuss first-aid techniques, watched fire fighting and fire rescue demonstrations, and listened to a U. S. Coast Guard officer lecture on boat and water safety.

BLACKFEET SEEK RESIDENTIAL CAMP DEVELOPMENT

Fresh air, fine scenery and ample opportunities for outdoor sports make Indian reservations prime locations for boys' and girls' residential camps. So said a recent study conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Blackfeet Indians of Montana agree.

The Blackfeet Tribal Council and Lakeshore Development Committee have endorsed a program designed to attract professional camp operators to four likely sites on their reservation near Glacier National Park. Working with BIA specialists they will prepare site information and promotional materials.

Residential camp development is one of the newer activities going on through joint Bureau-tribal efforts to promote economic development of Indian reservations.

EMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE FOR INDIANS

A sampling based on the six month period from November 1964 through April 1965 indicates the opportunities that are opening to skilled Indian workers through BIA's Employment Assistance Program.

During the period, 925 Indians were placed in 250 different occupations, from junior accountant to poultry processor. Of total placements, 80 percent were for men and 20 percent for women. The workers were employed in fields ranging from auto mechanics to library services, with numerous jobs in the service occupations, transportation, sales, management and manufacturing.

With the opening last month of a large-scale electronics assembly plant on the Navajo Reservation, a trend toward Indian employment in precision industries has been solidly established, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs reported.

The Navajo-based enterprise--Semiconductor Division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation of New York--extends the company's worldwide operations to another economically underdeveloped area and offers promise of a further breakthrough in the Indians' efforts to bring new vitality to isolated regions.

The Navajo Tribe has been on the lookout for ways to develop a rural area-- the craggy volcanic hill country surrounding Shiprock, New Mexico. The Shiprock site for the Fairchild electronic enterprise was selected by the tribal council because it is located in a region marked by the tribe for industrialization and urbanization in an effort to diversify and expand the region's economy.

More than 200 Navajos will be trained on-the-job under a contract between Fairchild and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Recruitment is on a reservation-wide basis. A further series of on-the-job training programs is anticipated for the near future, with eventual employment projected at 800.

The 50 Navajos already on the job, trained under a program financed through the Area Redevelopment Administration, "learn quickly and have a high productivity level” according to Fairchild spokesmen.

In exploring the possibilities, Fairchild representatives admitted they had some early doubts concerning the ability--and reliability--of Indian workers.

A check with other firms employing Indians--such as Harry Winston Minerals, a diamond-processing plant near Phoenix; and Bulova Watch, which manufactures ordinance parts at the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in North Dakota--satisfied them that Indian workers are precise, accurate and willing.

The Navajo country has a population of over 90,000, with tremendous unemployment. Every job created by Fairchild is expected to generate at least one other new job in business or services in the area.

What is happening on the Navajo Reservation is also taking place in other Indian areas.

New uses--economically productive uses--of Indian land are being sought to breathe new life into many communities. An increasing Indian population (due to declining infant, maternal and disease death rates), coupled with a national economic evolution away from independent farming and ranching, have created new problems for the Indians who still cling to rural reservation life. There are about 552,000 Indians in the United States according to census figures, and about 380,000 of them live on reservations and receive help from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, trustee for 50 million acres of Indian land.

One of the Bureau's concentrated efforts has been toward encouraging Indian tribes to link forces with the industrial and business community. As a result, manufacturers seeking workers with a combination of manual dexterity and highly developed sense of spatial relationships are looking toward the Indian labor market.

The Indian, with a natural affinity for precision work, is equally at home as a high-climbing steel structural worker and as a weaver of intricate designs. Somewhere between the two extremes lies electronic factory work, which calls for skill that is rooted in pride of workmanship. Two other electronics industries are already in business in economically hard-pressed Indian areas, and three more are currently under construction. Simpson Electric Company currently employs 75 Indians (nearly half its total employment) in a plant on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation in Wisconsin, which manufactures electric meters and parts. It was one of the first to venture into the Indian labor market. Burnell &Company, Inc., employs 100 Pueblo Indians in a components manufacturing plant on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was the primary agent in bringing the Indians and Burnell together.

Two companies are now preparing for production in economically depressed areas of South Dakota. They are CalDak Electronics, which will soon open at the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation, and Electro Tech Educational Corporation, scheduled to open a plant on the Yankton Sioux Reservation.

U.S. Automatics Corporation is in partnership with the Crow Tribe of Montana, and the new venture will soon commence operation at Hardin.

Other industrial ventures include the Sequoyah Mills at Anadarko and the projected Emle Western Hosiery Mill in Pryor, Oklahoma, and a variety of plants at Cherokee, North Carolina.

A total of 52 enterprises of various kinds have found their way thus far into Indian areas, with the Bureau of Indian Affairs supplying technical advice to tribal authorities and industrial representatives through the planning and financing stages.

The list of products that Indian workers are manufacturing includes fish products (Unalaska, Alaska); soft goods (Cherokee, North Carolina); ladies' garments (Fort Hall, Idaho); aluminum culverts (Gallup, New Mexico); furniture frames (Mille Lacs, Minnesota); cheese (Mission, South Dakota); plastic aircraft instrument panels (Wewoka, Oklahoma).

The total impact upon Indian areas is evidenced in new housing; community activity centers; classes in adult basic education in which tribal elders are the eager students; development of neglected areas into recreational parks and campgrounds for tourists; marinas bordering waterways; paved roads; new livestock breeding herds; sawmills; a revival of arts and crafts production; and a surge of social and political vitality.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs offers Indians what is believed to be the best bargain in vocational-training opportunities available anywhere. The plan Days all costs of training and even pays cost of family living if the Indian trainee is the family head.

The response to this foot-in-the-door to employment has been so great that an initial fund of $3,5 million annually, established by Congress eight years ago, was increased this year to $15 million.

Many of the Indian men and women enrolled in the Adult Vocational Training program are preparing for work in some aspect of electronics--ranging from radio repair to rocketry.

Award of three contracts totaling over $707,500 for road improvement projects on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota and the Cheyenne River and Pine Ridge Reservations in South Dakota was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

A contract of $285,102 was awarded to construct one 150-foot bridge, and to grade, drain and surface 12.9 miles on the Cheyenne River Reservation, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash said. The strip of highway will run west from Cherry Creek in Zieback County, South Dakota, and will provide the first half of all-weather access road between the Cherry Creek and Bridger communities in the extreme southwestern section of the Reservation. The low bidder was E. Stoltenberg and Son of St. Paul, Nebraska. Six bids were received on this project, ranging to $337,044.

On the Fort Berthold Reservation, a $269,636 contract to grade, drain, and surface 14 miles of road, from near White Shield in McLean County, North Dakota westward, was awarded to Tennefos Construction Company, Inc., Fargo, North Dakota. A part of the perimeter road system for the Garrison Reservoir, the project will serve to increase recreation and tourist travel on the reservation. Seven bids, ranging to $291,769, were received for this project.

On the Pine Ridge Reservation, a contract for $152,800 provides for grading and drainage of 6.6 miles of school bus route northwest of Kyle, in Shannon County, South Dakota. J. F. Bailey, of Bonesteel, South Dakota, was the successful bidder with the lowest of four bids that ranged to $189,496.

Improvement of reservation roads is an important phase of resource development efforts carried on by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Indian lands to improve economic conditions and stimulate employment. The North and South Dakota projects will enhance school bus service, make city markets more accessible to farmers, stimulate recreational development on reservation lands, and create employment for Indian construction workers, Commissioner Nash said.

Thousands of American Indian high school boys and girls will keep the jobs they had this summer. But they won't be drop-outs. They will be “step-ups” into a special program combining work opportunities with part-time schooling leading to high school diplomas.

They are part of the Neighborhood Youth Corps--students who, were it not for the employment they are provided under the Economic Opportunity Act, may have joined the ranks of early school quitters because of the financial needs of their families. About 22,000 Indian youngsters were enrolled this past summer.

An experiment in helping teen-agers to help themselves, the NYC has been hailed by school teachers and administrators as the long-sought “holding power” that too many high school programs lack. For the student who sees a diploma slipping from his grasp because he literally cannot afford to continue in school-- and also for the student whose school problems center upon his failure to see the relationship between classroom and the world of work--NYC offers an opportunity to earn while continuing to learn.

Indian youth, living in Indian communities from the Great Smokies in North Carolina to the Alaska panhandle, have spent what an official in the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs terms a "summer of self-discovery.”

Employed at the established minimum of $1.25 per hour, they have gone to work on jobs that needed doing but went undone for want of help--as hospital aides, library assistants, school and hospital maintenance and repair helpers, assistants in the record-keeping offices of various public agencies, workers on conservation and land reclamation projects, and helpers in public day-care centers for children of working mothers.

High on the Arizona plateaus that mark Hopi land, the NYC program enrolled '83 boys and girls of high school age in work projects to improve their land and villages. It put more cash into the pockets of Hopi families than many customarily see in a year, as the Hopi economy still is geared to livestock and crop farming, and some crafts production. Despite their remoteness and traditional reserve, the Hopi Indians place tremendous value upon education and are ardent supporters of programs that open up new educational opportunities for their young people.

At Taos, New Mexico, 85 young people spent two summer months repairing adobe buildings, fencing ranges, or serving as guides for the thousands of tourists who visit the remote but famed Taos Indian Pueblo in the New Mexico mountains. Added to their 30 hours per week of work were ten hours of classroom instruction for those who needed remedial programs to enable them to keep pace with their high school classes. The ten hours of weekly study were not reimbursed, but neither were they begrudged by the student workers. Much of the credit for the program's success is attributable to the Taos tribal leaders, whose wholehearted support set the tone for the student participants, BIA officials said.

Indian leadership almost everywhere has given support--and, thereby, prestige--to the Neighborhood Youth Corps for teen-agers, as well as to the companion "Operation Head Start" for pre-schoolers.

Insofar as possible, Indian adults were selected to work with the summertime Neighborhood Youth Corps. College students also formed a part of the leadership teams. On the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina, it was soon discovered that Cherokee youngsters were particularly receptive to the example set by the college youth, who stressed such factors as attentiveness, good grooming, promptness, responsibility, and initiative on the job. This was also true elsewhere.

"I'm old enough to quit high school," one somber-eyed Cherokee boy said. "I could get a job in one of the plants around here, and make some money. But I'm going to stay in school and get my diploma, because I'll still be able to earn some money and buy some of the things I want if I work with NYC while I'm in school. They keep telling us that a school dropout never gets beyond an unskilled job. Well, to tell the truth, I don't care about that so much. But I do care about the layoff time, when there's no money coming in. With a better education, there are more chances of good work and good-paying work. That's why I'm going to finish school this year under the NYC."

An Oklahoma girl reported on her experience on the student work program: "I always thought I'd like to be a teacher but I knew I couldn't afford to go to college, so I didn't see much point in finishing high school. But if I can work part-time, all the way through, and then get a scholarship from the Bureau or some Federal loan, then there's a real chance. One of the college student leaders on our NYC project is going to be a teacher. She has a loan and a scholarship and I admire her very much."

In the remote Indian community of Poplar, Montana, 33 Sioux boys and girls of the Fort Peck Reservation were also enrolled in NYC during the past summer. Among them were five who had graduated from high school and were planning to go on to further schooling in the fall. These five, and three college students, were among the leadership group in a promotional "Youth Opportunity Campaign," augmenting the Neighborhood Youth Corps and the Indian Bureau's own summer youth training program.

Sioux Indian areas in the Dakotas, and the remote Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation on the Canadian border, were also locales of Neighborhood Youth Corps activity during July and August, expected to continue through the present school year and will be extended into numerous additional Indian communities.

To participate in NYC, the local community must take the initiative by outlining a useful work program for student trainees and submitting the proposal to the Department of Labor, which operates the program for the office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D. C. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, with a three-man staff of Economic Opportunity liaison officers, has served as the information agency to Indian communities, and has provided technical aid in developing not only NYC but other federally funded youth aid programs under the anti-poverty agency. Paralleling efforts in NYC have been the widespread "Head Start" projects for pre-schoolers, which enrolled nearly 10,000 during the past summer.

The Bureau staff in Washington anticipates that enrollments in the Neighborhood Youth Corps will increase now that school has begun.