Bureau of Indian Affairs

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is the federal agency responsible for administering policies for Indian nations and communities.

Organization

The BIA was created in 1824 as a part of the U.S. War Department, a cabinet department that was the forerunner of the Department of Defense. Its task was to handle the growing problems caused by the westward expansion of the United States into territories mainly inhabited by the Indians. The early BIA had three levels of administration. Its leaders, including the commissioner, were stationed in Washington, D.C. BIA superintendents were posted throughout Indian-occupied lands, where they oversaw territorial-level agencies. Indian agents and subagents lived among the various tribes. The BIA remained within the War Department until 1849, when Congress transferred the Indian agency to the Department of the Interior.

The BIA was accused of abuse, mismanagement, and corruption from its early days and throughout the nineteenth century. Many of the agency's top administrators received their jobs as political favors; they were not qualified for the job or even interested in the plight of the American Indians. Many pocketed the money set aside for the Indians.

Taking the land

The BIA came into being around the same time that Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The act authorized the federal government to transfer Indians living in the eastern part of the country to lands west of the Mississippi River. The BIA was responsible for the task of confining

them to designated Indian reservations in the West and training them to adapt to mainstream American ways. For several decades, the BIA concentrated on Indian removal and relocation, which involved dislodging, usually by force, entire Native American communities from lands throughout the ever-expanding United States.

By 1870, the federal government had secured most of the present-day United States from the Indians. It signed treaties with them that promised the Indians that they could remain on their reservation lands forever. In 1871, however, the government called for an end to treaties. The Indian Appropriations Act declared Indians to be wards (people under the protection and care) of the government and gave the BIA the authority to carry out the government's role as guardian on the reservations.

Allotment

On February 8, 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act (General Allotment Act), designed to promote the concept of individual ownership of land by dividing the reservations into tracts and allotting one tract to each Indian. This was a tremendous change for most tribes, because Native American land was traditionally held in common by all members of the community and used for the good of everyone. Under the act, the individual tracts of land “given” to the Indians were to be held in trust (something held by one party for the benefit of another) for twenty-five years while the Indians received training in farming and other mainstream American customs.

The effect of the Dawes Act was to destroy the social and political systems of the tribes while transferring authority to powerful BIA Indian agents. The BIA staffed the tribal government, courts, and law enforcement agencies with hand-picked Indians who were willing to cooperate in pursuing the agency's goals. The BIA drafted a Code of Indian Offenses that prohibited many traditional cultural and religious practices. While the Indians were being trained to become farmers, the BIA rationed their food and necessities of life. The agency thus could starve into submission those Indians who refused to crop their hair short, who continued to paint their faces, or who persisted in engaging in traditional religious ceremonies. The bureau also assumed responsibility for the education of young Indians. Not surprisingly, its policy was to provide them with knowledge and skills necessary to fit into mainstream society. Students were not allowed to speak their native languages or practice many of their customs.

Indian New Deal

By the mid-1930s, it was clear that the Dawes Act had failed to benefit the Indians. The BIA-administered reservations were in disastrous shape, while those reservations owned and operated by the tribes as a group had fared much better. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45) promised reform. He appointed sociologist John Collier (1884–1968) commissioner of the BIA to help carry out the “Indian New Deal.” Under Collier's direction, the BIA stopped trying to force Native Americans to adapt to the non-Indian ways. Management of reservations was turned over to the tribes. Reservation schools were free to teach traditional Indian culture and languages in the classroom.

The BIA was not always popular after the reforms of the 1930s. In 1972, the American Indian Movement (AIM) staged a demonstration in which the protesters took over BIA headquarters in Washington, D.C., in protest of the federal government's Indian policies. In the 1990s, various groups accused the BIA of mismanagement of tribal funds. Nevertheless, in the early 2000s, the BIA continued to act as trustee over 55.7 million acres of land held in trust by the United States for the 561 federally recognized tribal governments. The agency is responsible for developing the forests, farms, and other resources of these lands and protecting water and land rights. The BIA also continues to provide education, health, and social services.