Office of Indian Affairs

The Office of Indian Affairs was created within the War Department in 1824 to administer treaty relations, land transactions, and federal policy toward Native American nations. It was transferred to the newly created Department of the Interior in 1849 and later renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Role in Documented Cases

The agency administered the implementation of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, including the negotiation and enforcement of removal treaties such as the 1835 Treaty of New Echota that led to the forced relocation documented in Trail of Tears. In the following century, the Bureau of Indian Affairs also administered federal boarding schools for Native American children in the United States, a policy paralleling the Canadian residential school system documented in Canadian Residential Schools.

Accountability

The agency’s role in removal-era policy has never been the subject of a dedicated legal accountability process; it is addressed primarily through historical scholarship and the U.S. government’s broader, evolving acknowledgment of federal Indian policy’s consequences, including the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which began transferring greater administrative authority to tribal governments.

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