Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

An overview of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971: The people affected by the Act, its structure, how money was distributed and how land was conveyed.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is a very complex document that has inspired people over the last three decades to write thousands of pages about it. The Act, known as ANCSA, has been praised, and it has been roundly criticized. But what's really important to keep in mind when discussing ANCSA is that it is a document that was developed for a group of human beings who had a very real claim to their ancestral home in Alaska. Their connection to the land is a spiritual one that transcends complex regulatory schemes. And yet for many, their tie to the land today is a law passed by Congress on Dec. 18, 1971.

An Athabascan raised in the Cook Inlet region has described what it felt like to be an Alaska Native in the state in the late 1960s - before the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and after wave after wave of non-Natives moved to the state. "We were like foreigners in our own country," she said.

The Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs Report on the bill to settle land claims, published Oct. 21, 1971, noted that conditions were appalling.

According to the report:

• The average age at death was less than 35 years; the infant mortality rate was more than twice the national average.
• Tuberculosis preyed on Natives at 20 times the rate for the rest of the United States.
• Other diseases ran rampant in Native communities, particularly those caused by environmental conditions. Alaska Native villages contained the worst housing in America. Of some 7,500 dwellings, 7,100 needed replacement.
• Out of 2,014 Native village households surveyed at the time, 1,561 had no water supply or waste disposal and 393 had well water only. Only 60 households had well water and sanitary waste disposal.
• Of Alaska Natives living in villages at the time, the average formal education was less than eight years. Those who wanted further education were forced to leave their communities and families - and in some cases even Alaska - for grades nine through 12.
• The 1960 census revealed that 21 percent of those in villages had no schooling, only 9 percent had completed high school and less than 1 percent had completed college.
• The Alaska Native unemployment rate was 60 percent.
• Annual per capita income for Alaska Natives was less than $1,000, much less than the official poverty level of the US government.

Such facts had been brought out in virtually all the hearings between 1968 and 1971. In 1971 the push for oil development, the state's desire to get the land promised to it under the Statehood Act and the Natives' efforts paid off with what would become the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. For four long years spirited debate had focused on just how much land Alaska Natives would retain and how much cash they would be granted for the extinguishment of their claims. The final bill that emerged promised 44 million acres and $1 billion.