The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building,located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington,D.C. It is responsible for the management and conservation of most federal lands and natural resources,and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans,Alaska Natives,Native Hawaiians,territorial affairs,and insular areas of the United States,as well as programs related to historic preservation. About 75% of federal public land is managed by the department,with most of the remainder managed by the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service. The department was created on March 3,1849.
Carl Schurz was a German revolutionary and an American statesman,journalist,and reformer. He migrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent member of the new Republican Party. After serving as a Union general in the American Civil War,he helped found the short-lived Liberal Republican Party and became a prominent advocate of civil service reform. Schurz represented Missouri in the United States Senate and was the 13th United States Secretary of the Interior.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA),also known as Indian Affairs (IA),is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to Native Americans and Alaska Natives,and administering and managing over 55,700,000 acres (225,000 km2) of reservations held in trust by the U.S. federal government for indigenous tribes. It renders services to roughly 2 million indigenous Americans across 574 federally recognized tribes. The BIA is governed by a director and overseen by the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs,who answers to the Secretary of the Interior.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP),an independent United States federal agency,is charged with the mission to promote the preservation of the nation's diverse historic resources. The ACHP advises the President and Congress on national historic preservation policy and also provides a public forum for stakeholders and the public to influence federal agency decisions regarding federal projects and programs that affect historic properties. The ACHP promotes the importance of historic preservation to foster an understanding of the nation's heritage and the contribution that historic preservation can make to contemporary communities,along with their economic and social well-being.
The Brothertown Indians,located in Wisconsin,are a Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities of so-called "praying Indians",descended from Christianized Pequot,Narragansett,Montauk,Tunxis,Niantic,and Mohegan (Algonquian-speaking) tribes of southern New England and eastern Long Island,New York. In the 1780s after the American Revolutionary War,they migrated from New England into New York state,where they accepted land from the Iroquois Oneida Nation in Oneida County.
Donald "Del" Laverdure was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior and also served as the Acting Assistant Secretary,overseeing the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education. He is also a former assistant professor of Law &Director of the American Indian Law Program at Michigan State University College of Law. He has served as Chairman of the Crow Nation Judicial Ethics Board,and Appellate Judge of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
Eugene Little Coyote was the president of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation from 2004 to 2007. He was elected in November 2004,defeating the incumbent president,Geri Small. However,after a conflict with reservation vice president Rick Wolfname that began in July 2007 escalated,the Northern Cheyenne tribal council declared that it would oust Little Coyote as the tribe's president. Little Coyote was forcibly removed from office and arrested for trespassing in the tribal office building on December 28,2007. It is worth noting that the move by the tribal council to remove Little Coyote from office was deemed unconstitutional and void by the Northern Cheyenne Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court was however overruled by Bureau of Indian Affairs' regional director Ed Parisian,and later the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman. Their involvement in this matter set a historical precedence of the BIA directly meddling with tribal governments.
Ada Elizabeth Deer was an American scholar and civil servant who was a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and a Native American advocate. As an activist she opposed the federal termination of tribes from the 1950s. During the Clinton administration,Deer served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs.
Diane Joyce Humetewa is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona and was the United States Attorney for the District of Arizona,serving in that position from December 2007 to August 2009. Confirmed in 2014 as the first Native American woman and enrolled tribal member to serve as a federal judge,Humetewa,a Hopi,is one of six Native Americans in history to serve in this position. Humetewa is also a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law. Humetewa has served as counsel to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and to the Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice,as a member of the United States Sentencing Guideline Commission,Native American Advisory Committee,and as an Appellate Court Judge for the Hopi Tribe,of which she is an enrolled member.
Kevin K. Washburn is an American law professor,former dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law,and current Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law. He served in the administration of President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2012 to 2016. Washburn has also been a federal prosecutor,a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice,and the General Counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission. Washburn is a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma,a federally-recognized Native American tribe.
Richard Rahul Verma is an Indian-American diplomat,who serves as the deputy secretary of state for management and resources,a position he has held since April 5,2023. He served as the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs from 2009 to 2011,and as the U.S. ambassador to India from 2014 to 2017. He served as the chief legal officer and head of global public policy at Mastercard,from 2020 to 2023,and as the vice chair of the Asia Group from 2017 to 2020,where he oversaw the firm's South Asia practice. He also practiced law for many years at Steptoe &Johnson LLP in Washington DC,and served as a Senior Counselor and Lead of the India and South Asia practice at Albright Stonebridge Group.
Harrison Loesch was a Colorado attorney who became Assistant Secretary of Interior under Richard Nixon. He served in that position from 1969 to 1973. He was responsible for major changes in the Bureau of Indian Affairs,National Park Service,Bureau of Land Management,and the Division of Territories and Island Possessions,all of which reported directly to him.
Michael Lee Connor is an American politician,lawyer and engineer. He has served as the United States Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works since November 2021,and served as the United States Deputy Secretary of the Interior from 2014 to 2017,among other positions in United States Department of the Interior.
The Coharie Intra-tribal Council,Inc. is a state-recognized tribe in North Carolina. The headquarters are in Clinton,North Carolina.
Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat is an American diplomat who is the current Director General of the Foreign Service. She is a former United States Ambassador to Bangladesh. She served as Ambassador to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau from 2008 to 2011. From January 1,2019,to April 3,2020,she was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the Department of State.
The Native American Venture Fund (NAVF) is a for-profit impact investment fund that partners with Native American Tribal Corporations to leverage the tribe's economic and legal advantages in order to develop successful tribal business enterprises. These legal advantages are defined as Tribal Sovereignty which are based upon existing laws and treaties to ensure that U.S. state governments and the U.S. federal government live up to their legal obligations to the Native American Tribal Nations. NAVF's vision is to help all tribal nations become economically self-sufficient by providing access to business opportunities,capital,training and mentor-ship.
Wilma Antoinette Lewis is a United States district judge of the District Court of the Virgin Islands. She previously served as the first female United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Kevin Gover is currently the Under Secretary for Museums and Culture at the Smithsonian. He had served from 2007 until January 2021 as the director of the National Museum of the American Indian. A citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma,he previously served as the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs under President Bill Clinton.
Elizabeth Moore Aubin is an American diplomat and State Department official who has served as U.S. ambassador to Algeria since February 9,2022. She previously served as acting principal deputy assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary for regional multilateral affairs from January 20,2021 to June 7,2021.
Bryan Todd Newland is an American attorney and tribal leader serving as the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs.
