A Change of Direction
The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, signed in January 1975, is often seen as the central law of the modern era of federal Indian policy. It followed the termination policy of the 1950s and early 1960s, which had sought to end the federal relationship with some tribes and to move people away from reservations. Termination was widely criticized for harm to the nations it affected, and by 1970 President Richard Nixon was calling publicly for a policy of self-determination without termination. The 1975 act put that policy into law.
Its core idea is simple. Programs that the federal government runs for Native people, such as those of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service, can instead be run by the tribe itself, under an agreement with the federal agency and with federal funding. The tribe, in other words, decides how services are delivered.
Contracting and Compacting
The law works through two main routes, which are often described by the numbers or names in the statute and later amendments.
- Contracting. Under the original act, a tribe could ask to take over a specific program, such as a police department, a road crew, a school or a clinic, and receive the money the agency would have spent on it. These are often called 638 contracts, after the number of the public law.
- Compacting. Self-governance amendments, which began as a demonstration project in the late 1980s and 1990s and were made permanent for the Indian Health Service in 2000, let eligible tribes negotiate broader agreements. A compact covers a wider group of programs and gives the tribe more flexibility to move funds among them.
The act also includes provisions about tribal employment, about the return of programs to the federal government if a tribe wishes, and about reporting. The rules have been revised several times, so current details are better taken from official federal and tribal sources.
What Changed in Apache Communities
Before the 1970s, federal agency staff, often from outside the community, ran most reservation services. Superintendents and agents had a long history of authority over daily life, reaching back to the period when Apache groups were first confined to reservations and rationed by government agents. Control of programs, hiring and budgets sat largely outside tribal hands.
After 1975, Apache nations could take on functions step by step. Which functions, and how fast, depended on each nation’s priorities, staffing and resources. In general terms, nations have used the act to take on programs in areas such as:
- law enforcement and tribal courts;
- natural resource management, including forestry, range and wildlife;
- housing and social services;
- health care, through tribally run clinics;
- education, including schools and scholarship programs, a subject covered in the material on Native-controlled schooling;
- roads, water and other infrastructure.
Several of the larger Apache nations in Arizona and New Mexico, such as the Mescalero Apache Tribe, the Jicarilla Apache Nation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the San Carlos Apache Tribe, have long-running tribal departments and programs of this kind, and some run enterprises such as tourism, timber, recreation or other business. Smaller or more recently reorganized nations took the same path at their own pace. Readers wanting specifics should consult each nation’s official website, since this site does not list current programs.
Government Capacity and Governance
Taking on programs requires administrative capacity, such as trained staff, financial systems, audits and legal knowledge. The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act had earlier encouraged written constitutions and elected councils, and those governments became the bodies that sign contracts and compacts. Self-determination therefore gave existing institutions much more to manage. Questions about how well councils and departments handle that work are matters of local politics, and this site takes no position on any nation’s choices.
The act also fits with ideas of Apache self-governance and economic development, because running programs creates local jobs and expertise, and because revenue from tribal enterprises can be used alongside federal funds.
Limits and Criticisms
Supporters and critics of the act agree on some points:
- Federal funding often does not cover the full cost of a program, and the gap can be hard for a tribe to fill.
- Reporting and compliance rules can be heavy, especially for small governments.
- The federal government generally keeps its trust responsibility, but disputes about what that includes continue, including questions about whether the agency should pay the full administrative costs of tribal operation.
- Self-determination does not remove federal limits on tribal authority, and the legal position of sovereignty is still debated.
Even so, the act is generally regarded as having changed the relationship between tribes and federal agencies from one of administration to one of agreement. Later laws, such as the Tribally Controlled Schools Act and amendments to health laws, extended the same principle.
Why It Matters
For Apache nations, self-determination in the legal sense is built on a longer history in which communities worked to keep their identity and community decision making under heavy pressure. The 1975 law did not create that capacity, but it gave it a legal framework and funding. This article is a general summary and not legal or financial advice. For current information, readers should consult the official websites of the Apache nations. This site is independent and speaks for no Apache nation.