A $20 million dollar grant will help Native Americans reclaim some of the millions of acres they lost to widespread fraud more than a century ago. Native Americans lost about 90 percent of reservation land they were given in the 19th century, including over 65 million acres in eight northwestern states. The Northwest Area Foundation said Tuesday that it will allocate $20 million over the next decade to the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, which it helped form last year. It is believed that the amount is the largest grant ever made to a Native American-controlled organization. “We see this initiative as having potentially a major impact on poverty reduction” among Indians, who are often “the poorest population” in the foundation's eight-state region from St. Paul to the west coast, said Karl Stauber, the foundation's president. The foundation will also work with local groups and tribal peoples on issues of land ownership and management.
