Research Guides: *U.S. Federal Documents: Native American & US Federal Government Relations

Current Policy & Practice

Native American Tribes are sovereign nations and have formal relationships with the U.S. Federal Government. At the same time there are federal agencies which provide services to Native American people and Tribal governments. This page provides pointers to federal agencies which provide services to, or partner with, Native American tribes in the pursuit of their mission.

Agriculture

U.S. Forest Service, Office of Tribal Relations
The Forest Service pursues partnerships with American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal governments and communities for mutually beneficial outcomes for land management.

Environmental Protection Agency

Office of International and Tribal Affairs (OITA)

Health & Human Services

Indian Health Service

Housing and Urban Development

Public and Indian Housing

Interior

Bureau of Indian Affairs
- The Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in the War Department in 1824 and transferred to the Dept of the Interior in 1849.
Bureau of Indian Education
U.S. Bureau of Land Management
- Tribal Consultations
- Cultural Heritage & Paleontology
  Consultations between BLM and Native American Tribes resulted in the updating of both the Tribal Relations Manual, and the Tribal Relations Handbook, both available here.

Justice

Office of Tribal Justice

Transportation; Federal Highway Administration

Office of Tribal Transportation

Veterans Affairs

Center for Minority Veterans

Boards, Commissions, and Committees

Indian Arts & Crafts Board, Dept of the Interior
National Indian Gaming Commission

Search the U.S.Government Manual which provides names and contact information for agencies and staff, organizational charts, and descriptions of responsibilities.

Indian Land Claims

Context for Indian Land Claims

Use the indexes to locate relevant entries in any of the following ebooks:

Finkelman, & Garrison, T. A. (2009). Encyclopedia of United States Indian policy and law. CQ Press.
Littlefield, & Parins, J. W. (2011). Encyclopedia of American Indian removal . Greenwood.

Indian Claims Insight This link opens in a new window
This resource provides researchers with the opportunity to understand and analyze Native American migration and resettlement throughout U.S. history, as well as U.S. Government Indian removal policies and subsequent actions to address Native American claims. Content includes decisions, transcripts, docket books, journals of the Indian Claims Commission, a judicial panel for relations between the U.S. Government and Native American tribes; and related statutes and congressional publications.

Historic Government Information

Background Information

Wilkins, David. "The "Peculiar" Relationship of Indigenous Peoples to the U.S. Government." Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America. 2013. Accessed June 3, 2024. One of several essays that accompany this collection of digitized primary source material from the Newberry Library's rich, diverse collections.

A very helpful overview of Native Americans and Citizenship from the NU Institute on Policy Research

Looking Back on the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act: IPR experts reflect on Native Americans’ U.S. citizenship and what it means 100 years later
May 29, 2024

Federal Laws, Treaties & Regulations

Indigenous Digital Archive (IDA) Digital Treaties Explorer
The US National Archives holds 374 treaties enacted between Indigenous peoples and the United States, where they are known as the Ratified Indian Treaties. They can now be viewed online for the first time, along with key historic works that provide context to the agreements made and the histories of our shared lands.

Kappler, Charles Joseph. ed. Indian Affairs: Laws & Treaties. Government Printing Office, 7 volumes, 2nd edition (print format). Also available online through the HathiTrust.

Supplement to Kappler's Indian affairs, laws and treaties: compiled federal regulations relating to Indians. U.S. Dept of Interior, 1975. Available online through Oklahoma State University Edmon Low Library.

American State Papers, Class II. Indian affairs. 2 volumes. 1st Cong.-19th Cong., May 25, 1789-Mar. 1, 1827.

Print edition in NULibraries
Electronic edition, hosted by University of Oklahoma Libraries

HeinOnline (NU affiliated users only)
Provides access to a vast collection of legal research materials including the "American Indian Law Collection / Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law," an archive of treaties, federal statutes and regulations, federal case law, tribal codes, constitutions, and jurisprudence. It also features rare compilations edited by Felix S. Cohen that have never before been accessible online.

Federal Agency Reports

NU Libraries has been a depository for publications of the US government since 1876 and have historic publications from some agencies, particularly their annual reports.

U.S. Commisssioner on Indian Affairs. Annual Reports, 1824-1968. 18 reels of microfilm
GOV I 20.1: year (GOV microfiche cabinets)

U.S. Commissioner on Indian Affairs. Annual Report.
GOV I 20.1: year (print copies 1855-1879)

Board of Indian Commissioners. Annual Report.
GOV I 20.5:year (print copies 1890-1932)

Report of the Superintendent of Indian Schools.
GOV I 20.7: year (print copies 1887-1906)

Native American Language & Culture

Contributions to North American Ethnology. U.S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, J.W. Powell in charge. 1877-1893. Print volumes available at GOV I 17.5:
Electronic edition available via HathiTrust for all volumes.

volume 1: Tribes of the Extreme Northwest, by W.H.Dall; Tribes of Western Washington and Eastern Oregon, by Geo. Gibbs, 1877.
volume 2, parts 1&2: The Klamath Indians of Southwestern Oregon, by Albert Samuel Gatschet, 1890 (includes Klamath-English and English-Klamath dictionaries, as well as transcriptions and translations of myths and stories).
volume 3: Tribes of California by Stephen Powers, 1877.
volume 4: Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines, by Lewis H. Morgan. 1881.
volume 5: Observations on Cup-Shaped and other Lapidary Sculptures in the Old World and in America, by Charles Rau, 1882.
volume 6: The Cegiha Language [the speech of the Omaha and Ponka tribes of the Siouan linguistic family of North American Indians], by James Owen Dorsey, 1890. (transcriptions and translations of myths and stories)
volume 7: A Dakota-English Dictionary, by Stephen Return Riggs, 1890.
volume 9: Dakota Grammar, Texts, and Ethnography, by Stephen Return Riggs. 1893.

Digital Collections & Repositories

American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899
The Serial Set is a compilation of U.S. Congressional publications published by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives about the bills and resolutions involved in lawmaking. It also includes reports of executive departments, government-funded institutions, and other independent organizations.
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Digitized and hosted by Oklahoma Department of Libraries and the University of Oklahoma Libraries.
First Nations Collection, Southern Oregon Digital Archive
This digital collection consists of documents, books, and articles relating to the indigenous peoples of the Siskiyou-Cascade-Klamath bioregion. We have begun to collect and mount materials about many tribes in southwestern Oregon and northern California. Some of these nations include the Coos, Hupa, Karuk, Klamath, Modoc, Takelma, Shasta, Siuslaw, Cow Creek Band of Umpqua, Yahooskin, and Yurok nations.

Hein Online This link opens in a new window
Specifically, the "American Indian Law Collection / Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law" which provides an archive of treaties, federal statutes and regulations, federal case law, tribal codes, constitutions, and jurisprudence. It also features rare compilations edited by Felix S. Cohen that have never before been accessible online.
Indigenous Peoples: North America This link opens in a new window
This database allows users to trace the history of Native Peoples in North America from colonial relations in the 1600s to twentieth-century issues such as civil rights. Includes manuscript collections, rare books and monographs, newspapers, periodicals, census records, legal documents, maps, drawings and sketches, oral histories, and photos, as well as video content from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Indigenous Peoples of North America, Part I: Provides users with a robust, diverse, informative source that will enhance research and increase understanding of the historical experiences, cultural traditions and innovations, and political status of indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada. Researchers will explore the impact of invasion and colonization on Indigenous Peoples in North America, and the intersection of Indigenous and European histories and systems of knowledge through the use of manuscripts, monographs, newspapers, photographs, motion pictures, images of artwork, and more. These are the primary sources that take students beyond the facts and figures of history and into a deeper understanding of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous Peoples of North America, Part II: The Indian Rights Association, 1882–1986 provides a near complete record of the efforts of the first organization to address Native American interests and rights. This collection includes the contains incoming and outgoing correspondence; organizational records; printed material (including early pamphlets and publications both by the Indian Rights Association and other American Indian and Indian-related organizations); Indian Rights Association annual reports; draft legislation; administrative files, the papers of Indian Rights Association founder Herbert Welsh, photographs (often from Western field trips), materials from the Council on Indian Affairs, and manuscripts and research notes regarding social and cultural Indian traditions.
Native American Tribal Histories, Series 1-4, 1813-1880 This link opens in a new window
Official record of encounters between Indigenous peoples and American Territorial officials as chronicled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Series 1-4, 1813-1880.

Through much of the 19th century, the education, land rights, treaty negotiations and other affairs of Native American tribes were overseen by a cadre of superintendents from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). BIA superintendents scrupulously recorded their interactions with Native American tribes. It contains all the manuscript letters and reports that the superintendents sent to Washington, D.C., as well as the responses and instructions received from the nation’s capital. These primary source documents cover not only encounters between Indigenous people and the U.S. government, but also accounts of Native American cultures during a time when disease and forced relocation were transforming their lives. Now, these rare materials are available for the first time in a readily accessible digital collection, which also contains detailed historical background notes created by the curators of the National Archives. - Publisher
ACCESS RESTRICTED to Northwestern University faculty, staff, and students of the Evanston and Chicago campuses except for use by a category of staff who have been advised of the unavailability of the resources to them. No interlibrary loan allowed. Visiting scholars are permitted use under the following terms: The definition of an Authorized User under this Agreement can be expanded to include visiting scholars while at the Licensed Site for business purposes with the Licensee, provided that in no case use by visiting scholars is done in a manner or magnitude as to act as a replacement for the visiting scholar's or visiting scholar's institution's own subscription to either the Products or the purchase of other NewsBank products. lf NewsBank reasonably determines that use by visiting scholars hereunder may be impairing NewsBank's ability to make sales of the Product or other NewsBank products to other customers, NewsBank may require such use by visiting scholars to be modified or terminated, either entirely or with respect to the visiting scholar(s) whose activity is impairing NewsBank's business.
ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
Congressional hearings on legislation and treaties provide insight into policy. Annual reports of federal agencies were submmitted to Congress and published as a part of the Serial Set (1817-1994), included in this database. Debates in Congress are recorded in the Congressional Record (1873-present) and its predecessors. See also Readex Guide: Government Documents
Territorial Papers of the United States, 1764-1953 This link opens in a new window
Territorial Papers of the United States is a collection of Native American negotiations and treaties, official correspondence with the federal government, military records, judicial proceedings, population data, financial statistics, land records, and more. Readex’s Territorial Papers contains the entire corpus of the official papers held by the Departments of State and Interior, the two largest such collections in Washington, D.C. Instead of transcripts, it features high-resolution images of the original sources—many of which are hand-written documents—ensuring that scholars don’t miss a single detail from this vital period in American history. - Publisher
ACCESS RESTRICTED to Northwestern University faculty, staff, and students of the Evanston and Chicago campuses except for use by a category of staff who have been advised of the unavailability of the resources to them. No interlibrary loan allowed. Visiting scholars are permitted use under the following terms: The definition of an Authorized User under this Agreement can be expanded to include visiting scholars while at the Licensed Site for business purposes with the Licensee, provided that in no case use by visiting scholars is done in a manner or magnitude as to act as a replacement for the visiting scholar's or visiting scholar's institution's own subscription to either the Products or the purchase of other NewsBank products. lf NewsBank reasonably determines that use by visiting scholars hereunder may be impairing NewsBank's ability to make sales of the Product or other NewsBank products to other customers, NewsBank may require such use by visiting scholars to be modified or terminated, either entirely or with respect to the visiting scholar(s) whose activity is impairing NewsBank's business.

Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative 2021 -

Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
Description of this initiative with links to transcripts of visits by Secretary Haaland and Assistant Secretary Newland to various Native communities on “The Road to Healing” tour; links to additional resources included.
Press Release Announcing Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative
6/22/2021
Press Release Announcing Release of Investigative Report
5/11/2022
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report. May 2022
This study documents the first investigation into Federal Indian boarding school system, which targeted Indian and Native Hawaiian children. The report, along with appendices A, B, C, and D are available at this link.
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- Appendices A/B: List of Federal Indian Boarding Schools as of April 1, 2022. In addition to name and city/state, each school is listed with the defining characteristics used for inclusion on this list, e.g. dates of operation, housing, education, and federal support, and some notes about where the school is mentioned in federal publications.
- Appendix C: Federal Indian Boarding School Maps
- Appendix D: Consultations with Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, Alaska Native Corporations, and the Native Hawaiian Community
Indian Affairs Committe, Senate. Hearing on Volume 1 of the Department of the Interior’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report and S. 2907, June 22, 2022
Testimony and supportive materials.
A New Online Tool Will Let Native Americans Search for Relatives Who Attended Indian Boarding Schools
Native News Online report of forthcoming database, 5/6/2023.
Unveiling of list of Catholic-run Native boarding schools allows for ‘subsequent generations to achieve healing’
News report from The Dialog, 5/10/2023,

Tribal Law Resources

There are 574 Federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States, each with their own unique governments and laws.

National Indian Law Library (NILL)
The National Indian Law Library (NILL) of the Native American Rights Fund is a law library devoted to federal Indian and tribal law. NILL maintains a unique and valuable collection of Indian law resources and assists people with their Indian law-related research needs.
HeinOnline - American Indian Law Collection
A rich online collection of historical legal documents relating to Native Americans.