*This issue of the Review was adapted from A Summary of Changes in the Status of Alaska Natives, a report prepared by ISER for Educational Services Corporation, Management Concepts, Inc., of Falls Church, Virginia.
1The act awarded village corporations only surface rights to the 22 million acres they selected. Regional corporations gained subsurface rights to the 22 million acres of village corporation lands plus surface and subsurface rights to an additional 16 million acres selected by regional corporations. (From: Robert D. Arnold et al., Alaska Native Land Claims, Alaska Native Foundation, 1976, pp. 253-260.)
21n 1970 the Census Bureau identified 50,605 Alaska Natives residing in Alaska. However, the ANCSA enrollment reported 59,771 Alaska Natives residing in the state as of December 14, 1971. Only about 1,400 of the 9,166 difference between the 1970 census figures and the December 1971 ANCSA figures can be explained by population growth. The balance, some 7,700 Alaska Natives, represents a potential undercounting by the census bureau or different definitions of who is an Alaska Native. The census furnishes no definition of race or ethnicity, but lets respondents decide for themselves. In contrast, the settlement act defines an Alaska Native as being at least one-quarter Alaska Aleut, Eskimo, Indian, or combination thereof.
For our purposes, because the 1980 census was conducted in the same manner as the 1970 census, including self-definition of race by respondents, we have assumed that the two censuses are comparable and that any errors or omissions made in 1970 were also made in 1980. We have had numerous opportunities to test the reliability of the census data and, with the sole exception of the absolute count, are confident that it fairly represents the social and economic conditions of Alaska Natives.
3The Census Bureau publishes the number of Eskimos and Aleuts present in the United States but does not differentiate between the various American Indian groups. We estimated the number of Athabascans, Tlingits, and Haidas living outside Alaska on the basis of (1) the number of American Indians enumerated in Alaska in 1980 and (2) an estimate of the proportion of Alaska Native Indians who lived outside of Alaska in 1980. This estimate is, in turn, based on the observed proportion of Alaskan Indians who lived outside Alaska in 1974 according to enrollment statistics, adjusted to fit the observed change in the proportion of Eskimos and Aleuts living outside of Alaska between 1974 and 1980.
4Because the Native population is younger.
5We used the size of each community in 1970 to make this comparison to avoid showing an apparent shift in population toward larger places simply because the places grew and were reclassified into a larger size category.
6O. Scott Goldsmith and J. Phillip Rowe, 1982. "Federal Revenues and Spending in Alaska," Alaska Review of Social and Economic Conditions, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Anchorage, Vol. XIX, No. 2.
7Defined as more than one occupant per room.