What “trust” means here
Much land inside Indian reservations is not owned outright by the nations or individuals who use it. Instead, the United States holds legal title in trust, and tribes or individuals hold what the law calls beneficial interest. The federal government, usually through the Interior Department, is the trustee. When that land produces income from leases, rights-of-way, timber, grazing, minerals or settlements, the trustee often collects the money and holds it in accounts until it is paid out or invested. These are the “Indian trust funds.”
Two kinds of accounts matter most. Tribal trust accounts hold money for a nation as a whole. Individual Indian Money accounts, known as IIM accounts, hold money for individual Native owners of trust land. The two have separate histories and separate legal disputes.
How the system grew
The arrangement has roots in nineteenth-century treaties and laws that put the federal government in charge of Native property and revenues, partly on the theory that Native owners needed protection. Under the Dawes Act allotment policy of 1887, parcels of reservation land were assigned to individuals and held in trust, often for a period of years that was later extended indefinitely. When allottees died, their land passed to heirs, and over generations a single parcel could come to be shared by large numbers of people. This process, called fractionation, made record-keeping and payment much more complicated.
For Apache nations, the picture varies. Some reservations were allotted only in part, and some remained largely tribal land, so the proportion of income going to tribal accounts rather than individual ones differs from place to place. The revenue sources also differ. Timber has been significant on some mountain reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, oil and gas on others, and grazing and leasing nearly everywhere. Each nation’s land and natural resources office can explain its own situation.
Tribal governments organized under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 often had to seek the Interior Secretary’s approval for leases and certain contracts, which kept the federal government deeply involved in the use of trust assets. Later laws shifted some of that authority back to nations.
Why mismanagement was alleged
By the late twentieth century, reports from congressional committees, government auditors and tribes themselves described long-standing problems. The problems raised in those reports fell into several broad categories:
- Incomplete or lost records, so that it was hard to know how much had been collected for a given owner.
- Delays in sending money to account holders, and in some cases failing to collect it.
- Outdated accounting systems and unclear lines of responsibility within the agencies.
- Difficulty in locating account holders, particularly when ownership had been divided among many heirs.
These findings were made in terms of general patterns across many nations. They are not a verdict on any individual Apache nation or account, and different nations were affected in different degrees.
In 1994, Congress passed the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act, which acknowledged the problems, required an accounting for tribal and individual funds, and created a special trustee’s office within Interior to oversee reform. Progress was slow, and in 1996 Native plaintiffs filed the class action that became the Cobell case. The litigation ended with the 2009 Cobell settlement, which is discussed in detail in a separate article on this site. In short, the settlement paid account holders and funded a land buy-back program for fractionated interests.
Tribal trust claims
Tribal governments pursued their own trust accounting claims, separate from the individual class action. Many were negotiated and resolved over the 2000s and early 2010s, though the terms and the nations involved differ. Whether a particular Apache nation reached such an agreement, and what it was used for, is something to find on that nation’s own website or in public announcements.
What it meant for Apache account holders
For Apache families, the effects of trust management and reform are fairly practical. A person who owns an interest in trust land may have an IIM account and may receive payments from leases or settlements. A nation’s trust income can pay for services such as schools, health programs, road maintenance or elder support, depending on the budget decisions of the tribal council. Delays or errors in trust accounting can slow all of these. Reform efforts have tried to improve statements, record systems and communication, and some responsibilities now rest with tribal governments under self-governance arrangements, as described under the Indian Self-Determination Act.
At a broader level, the debate over trust funds shaped discussions of Apache tribal sovereignty. Many nations see better control over their own assets as part of self-governance, while the federal government’s trustee role remains in law.
Getting current information
Trust accounting rules, office names and procedures have changed repeatedly. This article is a general explanation and not legal or financial advice. Anyone with questions about an account should contact the Interior Department’s trust office, the Bureau of Indian Affairs agency for their reservation, or their nation’s land office, and use the official websites of those bodies for current information.