The Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC) is a state-level government agency created by the

Minnesota Legislature The Minnesota Legislature is the bicameral legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota consisting of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senators are elected from 67 single-member districts. In order to account for decenn ...

in 1963 to provide a liaison between the government of

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...

and the American Indian

tribes The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

in the state. The council also brings issues of concern to Indians living in urban areas to the attention of the state government. It was the first state-level Indian affairs agency to be established in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Mission and vision

The mission of MIAC is "to protect the sovereignty of the 11 Minnesota tribes and ensure the well-being of all American Indian citizens throughout the state of Minnesota." The organization's vision, as given in a 2020 report by Wilder Research, is "to strive for social, economic, and political justice for all American Indian people living in Minnesota, while embracing our traditional cultural and spiritual values."

Tribal nations

The council communicates with governments of eleven

Indian reservation An Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a federally recognized Native American tribal nation whose government is accountable to the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and not to the state government in which it ...

s recognized by the

United States federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fed ...

. Seven are

Anishinaabe The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawa ...

( Chippewa, Ojibwe) reservations and four are Dakota (

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota: /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations peoples in North America. The modern Sioux consist of two major divisions based on language divisions: the Dakota and ...

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Native American organizations Indian Affairs Council Native American history of Minnesota Native Americans in Minnesota