Indian Issues: GAO's Analysis of Land Ownership at 12 Reservations

Indian Issues: GAO's Analysis of Land Ownership at 12 Reservations
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 4
Release: 1992
Genre:
ISBN:

The General Accounting Office (GAO) discusses land ownership at 12 Indian reservations. For these reservations, the report describes (1) the ownership of Indian land, (2) the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA's) workload in maintaining ownership records, and (3) the Indian Land Consolidation Act's effect on multiple ownership of land tracts by small ownership interests, referred to as fractionation. GAO also discusses its use of BIA's computerized land records data base to develop the information contained in this report. In summary, it was found that -- Over half of the 83,000 land tracts at the 12 reservations had only one owner, either the tribe or an Indian individual. -- Ownership of about 20 percent of the tracts was fractionated to the point where at least one Indian individual had an interest of 2 percent or less and, in extreme cases, hundreds of owners had ownership interests of 2 percent or less. -- For the 12 reservations, about 60 percent of the 1 million ownership records maintained by BIA represented ownership interests of 2 percent or less that were held by Indian individuals. -- While the Indian Land Consolidation Act had resulted in some small ownership interests being transferred to tribes, the number of small interests held by Indian individuals had more than doubled since the act was passed in 1983. To develop the above information, we uploaded data from BIA's Land Records Information System to a mainframe computer and used computer software programs to produce the charts and tables in the report. (KAR) P. 2.

Indian Issues

Indian Issues
Author: James Duffus
Publisher:
Total Pages: 3
Release: 1992
Genre: Indians of North America
ISBN:

Indian Programs

Indian Programs
Author: United States. General Accounting Office
Publisher:
Total Pages: 36
Release: 1992
Genre: Indians of North America
ISBN:

Indian Programs

Indian Programs
Author: United States. General Accounting Office. RCED.
Publisher:
Total Pages: 30
Release: 1992
Genre: Indians of North America
ISBN:

Indian Programs

Indian Programs
Author: United States. General Accounting Office
Publisher:
Total Pages: 30
Release: 1992
Genre: Indians of North America
ISBN:

Divided Interests

Divided Interests
Author: Jacob Russ
Publisher:
Total Pages: 31
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

In 1992, the General Accounting Office (GAO) published a quantitative survey of Indian land ownership of twelve reservations, which was the first and still is the only survey of Indian land ownership. We use 2010 data to show how ownership fractionation for these reservations has changed since the original GAO study. Fractionation is the continuing division of ownership of Indian land tracts due to inheritance laws dating back to 1887. Despite Congressional action regarding land fractionation, and the US Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA's) land consolidation programs, fractionation has not only continued, but BIA's complex recordkeeping workload has nearly doubled for the twelve reservations over the eighteen year interval. The GAO estimated that BIA's annual recordkeeping costs for these twelve reservations were between $60 and $75 million (in 2010 dollars). With the addition of over a million new ownership records, due to fractionation, we estimate BIA's yearly recordkeeping costs for these twelve reservations have increased to $246 million in 2010. We discuss how to end fractionation in order to improve economic development for Indian tribes and to achieve significant administrative cost savings.

American Indian Sovereignty and Law

American Indian Sovereignty and Law
Author: Wade Davies
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 649
Release: 2009-02-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0810862360

American Indian Sovereignty and Law: An Annotated Bibliography covers a wide variety of topics and includes sources dealing with federal Indian policy, federal and tribal courts, criminal justice, tribal governance, religious freedoms, economic development, and numerous sub-topics related to tribal and individual rights. While primarily focused on the years 1900 to the present, many sources are included that focus on the 19th century or earlier. The annotations included in this reference will help researchers know enough about the arguments and contents of each source to determine its usefulness. Whenever a clear central argument is made in an article or book, it is stated in the entry, unless that argument is made implicit by the title of that entry. Each annotation also provides factual information about the primary topic under discussion. In some cases, annotations list topics that compose a significant portion of an author's discussion but are not obvious from the title of the entry. American Indian Sovereignty and Law will be extremely useful in both studying Native American topics and researching current legal and political actions affecting tribal sovereignty.