Alaska Native Regional Corporations

The Alaska Native Regional Corporations (Alaska Native Corporations or ANCSA Corporations) were established in 1971 when the United States Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) which settled land and financial claims made by the Alaska Natives and provided for the establishment of 13 regional corporations to administer those claims.

Associations, regional and village corporations

Under ANCSA the state was originally divided into 12 regions, each represented by a "Native association" responsible for the enrollment of past and present residents of the region. Individual Natives enrolled in these association, and their village level equivalents, were made shareholder in the Regional and Village Corporations created by the Act. The twelve for-profit regional corporations (and a 13th region represents those Natives who were no longer residents of Alaska in 1971) were awarded the monetary and property compensation created by ANCSA. Village corporations and their shareholders received compensation through the Regional Corporations. The fact that many ostensibly native villages throughout the state were not empowered by the Act to form village corporations later led to a number of lawsuits.

The Regional and Village corporations are now owned by Native people through privately owned shares of corporation stock, many of whom no longer live in these villages or even in Alaska. Adult Native alive at the time of the Act (1971) who enrolled in a Native Association (at the Regional and/or Village level) received 100 shares of stock in the respective corporation. No provision was made for those born after the Act, or those Alaska Natives who did not enroll in one of the ANCSA created Native Associations. As people have moved away or bequeathed shares to children and kin, the proportion of non-resident shareholders in ANCSA corporations has grown proportionally.

During the 1970s, Regional and Village Corporations] were allowed to select land in and around native villages in the state in proportion to their enrolled populations. Village corporations controlled the surface rights to the lands they selected, but the regional corporations controlled the subsurface rights of both their own selections, and of those of the Village corporations. This was meant to simplify negotiations over drilling rights on the North Slope, centralizing all the subsurface rights in a single corporate entity.

Native governments within the state have a mix of relations with ANCSA Village Corporations. Some village tribal governments have given over tribal governance responsibilities to Native Corporations. Others have not. Some Native Corporations (Village and Regional) have functioned very well, and produced much profit for their shareholders. In other places, tribal and village interests have conflicted with corporate programs, and the development goals of the Village and Regional Corporations have been resisted by Tribal Governments.

Text of the Act

The Act lays out the specifics of the corporations' status. Here is an excerpt of the relevant portion:

43 U.S.C. § 1606

(a) Division of Alaska into twelve geographic regions; common heritage and common interest of region; area of region commensurate with operations of Native association; boundary disputes, arbitration. For purposes of this chapter, the State of Alaska shall be divided by the Secretary within one year after December 18, 1971, into twelve geographic regions, with each region composed as far as practicable of Natives having a common heritage and sharing common interests. In the absence of good cause shown to the contrary, such regions shall approximate the areas covered by the operations of the following existing Native associations:

(1) Arctic Slope Native Association (Barrow, Point Hope);

(2) Bering Straits Association (Seward Peninsula, Unalakleet, Saint Lawrence Island);

(3) Northwest Alaska Native Association (Kotzebue);

(4) Association of Village Council Presidents (southwest coast, all villages in the Bethel area, including all villages on the Lower Yukon River and the Lower Kuskokwim River);

(5) Tanana Chiefs' Conference (Koyukuk, Middle and Upper Yukon Rivers, Upper Kuskokwim, Tanana River);

(6) Cook Inlet Association (Kenai, Tyonek, Eklutna, Iliamna);

(7) Bristol Bay Native Association (Dillingham, Upper Alaska Peninsula);

(8) Aleut League (Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands and that part of the Alaska Peninsula which is in the Aleut League);

(9) Chugach Native Association (Cordova, Tatitlek, Port Graham, English Bay, Valdez, and Seward);

(10) Tlingit-Haida Central Council (southeastern Alaska, including Metlakatla);

(11) Kodiak Area Native Association (all villages on and around Kodiak Island); and

(12) Copper River Native Association (Copper Center, Glennallen, Chitina, Mentasta).

(c) Establishment of thirteenth region for nonresident Natives; majority vote; Regional Corporation for thirteenth region. ^*

(d) Incorporation; business for profit; eligibility for benefits; provisions in articles for carrying out chapter. Five incorporators within each region, named by the Native association in the region, shall incorporate under the laws of Alaska a Regional Corporation to conduct business for profit, which shall be eligible for the benefits of this chapter so long as it is organized and functions in accordance with this chapter. The articles of incorporation shall include provisions necessary to carry out the terms of this chapter.

External links

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Resource Center run by Landye Bennett Blumstein LLP.
Alaska Natives & American Indians resources from the Justice Center, University of Alaska Anchorage.
www.ancsa.net a portal dedicated to ANCSA run by Karabelnikoff & Associates

The corporations

Alaska Natives

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Associations, regional and village corporations

Text of the Act

External links

The corporations