The

he first Americans-the Indians-regard the land as their strongest link with the past and their best hope for the future. In more primitive times, land and life were virtually synonymous.

The majority of Indians still live on lands their ancestors called home. But even the growing numbers who venture into urban life and urban occupations still cling to the land-base outlook by keeping tribal ties alive.

Most of the present-day Indian land is in tribal estates— that is, reserves held in common under Federal trusteeship. In some cases, tribal members also hold individual allotments acquired by their families under an 1887 law, now inoperative, that was intended to convert the nomadic peoples into farmers.

Tribal lands are, in effect, Indian domains, just as national parks, forests, seashores and the like are part of the public domain.

Indian holdings total some 50 million acres, or more than two percent of the total area of the Nation. Large blocs of Indian real estate may be found in nearly all parts of the country, from the Florida Everglades to the Arctic rim, with scatterings along the eastern seaboard. The Federal Government's trust responsibility is largely confined to lands in 26 States, most of which are west of the Appalachians.

Many present-day Indian holdings were acquired by treaty or other agreements with the United States, beginning at the turn of the 19th century when the population boom on the East coast precipitated decades of forcible removal of Indians westward. The Gold Rush brought about an additional confrontation, that time with the Indian Tribes that were native to the American West.

Much of the land that was reserved for Indians following 19th century Indian wars was barren, remote and scarcely productive enough to support the tribal populations. Today, however, many of the once-isolated areas are in the path of heavy tourist traffic; and forest, water and mineral reserves offer tremendous potential for economic improve

ment.

Rural Indian communities frequently represent a segment of America seemingly bypassed. Until very recent years, the Nation's economic development efforts for depressed areas did not embrace most Indian communities. The present challenge is to make up for lost time.

Many American tourists visiting rural Indian areas are struck by contrasts in the standards of living between Indians and non-Indians. Although the cause is often basically economic, sometimes it is by choice that the Indian community clings to its traditional forms as a means of retaining cultural links with its own past.

A classic example of the tie between land and culture is highlighted in the long-standing request of the New Mexican Pueblo de Taos Indians for return to their possession of 48,000 acres of land in the sacred Blue Lake area. The land was taken as a national forest in 1906, and the Taos Indians, who adhere to a theocratic socio-political structure, assert that the sacred lands have been violated by tourists, miners, loggers and others.

Legislation to restore the Blue Lake sacred lands to Taos ownership was proposed by President Nixon and enacted by the 91st Congress.

Public sympathy for Indian causes such as this is all too often overlaid with a sentiment that Indian Americans are something out of the pages of history and unrelated to today's world. Some of the younger and more outspoken generation are demanding an answer to their question: "Why are we made to feel irrelevant in the American society simply because we make open effort to retain our Indian-ness?"

To help bridge such seeming gaps, the present Administration has instituted a number of policy changes in Indian affairs designed to bring Indians into the orbit of planning and executing business affecting their daily lives.

On July 8, 1970, President Nixon sent a message to Congress calling for basic changes in the special relationships between the Federal Government and the tribes,

with programs directed toward broadening economic and educational opportunities for Indians in ways that will reinforce rather than diminish ethnic pride.

Development of the human resources and development of the natural resources found in Indian communities are being approached as interrelated and interdependent objec

tives.

Indians have been placed in key positions in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The new commissioner is the third Indian in history to hold that post. Administrative and budget operations, tribal relations and legislative activities are under Indian direction, and Indians are in key posts related to education and economic development, too. The structure of the BIA is shifting from a management to a service organization, permitting broader exercise of Indian control at local levels.

To coordinate Federal efforts for Indian community development, and thus get the most mileage from appropriations for Indian aid (this year over $700 million), the Vice President functions as Chairman of a special bodythe Council on Indian Opportunity. Members include eight Cabinet officers and eight prominent Indians selected for their various fields of competence and their familiarity with specific regions of the country having high Indian populations. The new Indian members of the NCIO began their work in August 1970, with a series of regional meetings with tribal groups to probe the problems adversely affecting Indian community development.

To realize local involvement of Indians in issues relating to their lands and resources, the President introduced a plan to permit tribal governments to take over operation of programs and facilities of the BIA, if the tribe so wishes. At the same time, he reaffirmed the concept of continuing Federal responsibility for Indian trust lands and Indian people, thus expurgating the old spectre of Federal "termination" that has inhibited Indian self-propulsion.

The objective, in the President's words, is to "strengthen the Indians' sense of autonomy without threatening his sense of community."

As a result, Indian tribal groups are taking a more active and persistent stance in planning improvement projects and programs. They also reveal a quick appreciation of the fact that Indian areas are often dependent upon growth in surrounding non-Indian areas, and thus intercommunity developments are taking place.

Illustrative of the new look in a growing number of Indian communities are such enterprises as the following, all of which have materialized within the past year:

-An Indian Business Development Fund was created in the BIA to provide seed money for establishment or expansion of Indian-owned small businesses in local Indian

areas.

-Stepped-up housing construction produced 8,000 new or fully remodeled homes for rural Indians last year and the same number annually is projected for the next four years. This is a joint program of the BIA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

-The Gila River reservation in Arizona, situated in the general growth area of Phoenix, has been designated a

Model Cities Area under a HUD program, thus becoming eligible for sizeable funds for development over the next five years. Planning and development will be in cooperation with neighboring towns.

-A new industry is opening on an Indian reservation at the rate of about one every two weeks, creating thousands of new jobs that are helping reverse Indian unemployment statistics. In some areas, Indian joblessness had been 10 times the national average. Industrial and commercial development specialists in the BIA function as advisors to Indians in negotiating contracts with private industries.

-Grants and loans for construction of industrial plants, tourist facilities, shopping areas and similar economic improvements are also finding their way to Indian tribal lands through the Economic Development Administration, which expended nearly $20 million in 1970 for Indian aid.

-A million-dollar contract was recently negotiated with the United Tribes of North Dakota Development Corporation for the latter to operate a training center at Bismarck, North Dakota, on the site of a former Job Corps Center. The new Indian enterprise offers "whole family" training, which includes remedial education for the breadwinner, skill training in the occupation of his choice and homemaking orientation for the homemaker.

-Most notable in the 1970 picture is the takeover by the Zuni Tribe of New Mexico of all operations formerly performed by the BIA, under a contract with BIA. Thus, all resources development programs and social and educational services are in the hands of the tribe itself.

Other contracts to Indians for services include roadbuilding and the operation of local schools in a few Indian communities.

Large-scale activity in mining and oil explorations are taking place in at least a few Indian areas that heretofore had offered little in the way of economic promise. Leases

provide safeguards against destruction of the ecology in

the mining and drilling areas.

Sustained yield practices on the rich forest reserves of many of the tribes-particularly those in the far Northwest-are paying off in steady annual increases in revenues to the tribes from cutting and from processing operations. Some large-scale commercial farming and ranching is also found on Indian reservations, although capitalization for Indian ventures usually is scarce. Irrigation projects financed by BIA have made former desert areas highly arable. (Proposals for a guaranteed loan fund, under consideration by the 92nd Congress, are aimed at encouraging more large-scale Indian enterprises.)

The Navajos have established a community college geared to training tribal members in farming and other occupations. An experimental farm is in operation as a training ground for Navajos who look forward to farming their own acreage as construction of the massive Navajo Irrigation Project progresses. This project is on the eastern side of the reservation.

Indian development is sometimes hampered by legal

constraints.

A far-reaching new proposal by President Nixon would establish an Indian Trust Council Authority to serve as the Indians' legal counsel and advocate, with authority to defend Indian property rights in cases against the Government. Conflicts of interest sometimes arise, particularly in connection with Indian water rights. Under a 1908 Supreme Court decision, Indians are considered to hold first rights to waters originating upon or traversing their trust lands. Sometimes the waters also traverse public lands, and water requirements of the general population, particularly in the West, are likely to be at odds with Indian claims.

In line with other Presidential recommendations, the

Department also proposed legislation to create within the Department of the Interior a new Assistant Secretaryship to be concerned exclusively with Indian affairs and affairs of the Territories; and for settlement of a century-old lands claim of the Alaska Natives.

President Nixon has said:

"The recommendations of this Administration represent an historic step forward in Indian policy. We are proposing to break sharply with past approaches to Indian problems. In place of a long series of piecemeal reforms, we suggest a new and coherent strategy. In place of policies which simply call for more spending, we suggest policies which call for wiser spending. In place of policies which oscillate between the deadly extremes of forced termination and constant paternalism, we suggest a policy in which the Federal government and the Indian community play complementary roles.

"But most importantly, we have turned from the question of whether the Federal government has a responsibility to Indians to the question of how that responsibility can best be fulfilled. We have concluded that the Indians will get better programs and that public monies will be more effectively expended if the people who are most affected by these programs are responsible for operating them.

"The Indians of America need Federal assistance--this much has long been clear. What has not always been clear, however, is that the Federal government needs Indian energies and Indian leadership if its assistance is to be effective in improving the conditions of Indian life. It is a new and balanced relationship between the United States government and the first Americans that is at the heart of our approach to Indian problems. And that is why we now approach these problems with new confidence that they will successfully be overcome."