"National Archives Indian Records Discarded"

[existentialist]

"National Archives Indian Records Discarded"
Posted by buzzsaw_23
National Archives Indian Records Discarded


Thursday September 22, 2005 4:01 AM

By JOHN HEILPRIN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal officials are investigating how National Archives documents of interest to Indians suing the Interior Department were found discarded in a trash bin and a wastebasket.

The discovery came to light on Sept. 1, when Archives staff noticed federal records in one of the trash bins behind the National Archives Building near the Capitol. They notified the Archives' inspector general, Paul Brachfeld, whose staff recovered the documents.

They found at least a portion of the documents were Bureau of Indian Affairs records dating to the 1950s, according to Jason Baron of the Archives' Office of General Counsel, in a letter last week to an Interior Department official.

Brachfeld's office began investigating, and ``what appear to be Indian records were discovered in a waste basket in the stack areas at Main Archives,'' Baron wrote. Taken together, the two dumping incidents ``may be intentional acts aimed at unlawfully removing or disposing of permanent records from the Interior Department,'' he wrote.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-529...

[CountAllVotes]

1. I sent my aunt this

She is 75 years old and wow is she ever mad. She replied to me, "The government never stops screwing the Indians - damn them!". She wonders why there are no records of her mother who was Indian. I told her because her grandfather pretty much did not identify his children nor himself as Indian being he was Choctaw and at the wrong time. It was the time of the Trail of Tears and I rather suspect he may have been on the Trail of Tears or been in hiding. I cannot blame him being American Indian policy at the time was that of extermination ----> assimilation.

Thanks for posting this. Now we know why many of us cannot find records of our Indian ancestors. However, I only need look at the pictures I have to know who they were.

:kick: