Feds Send Land Buy-Back Offers to Nearly 4K in Lower Brule

LOWER BRULE, S.D. (AP) — The federal government says it has sent purchase offers to nearly 4,000 landowners who have parcels on the Lower Brule Indian Reservation as part its effort to help tribal governments consolidate land.

The Interior Department says the offers sent to landowners with fractional interests on the reservation amount to more than $11 million.

Land buy-back programs aim to help Native American tribes buy parcels of reservation land that have accumulated multiple owners. The parcels that get sold will be consolidated and held in trust for the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe.

The purchases are part of a settlement over government mismanagement of Indian land royalties.

Allotting reservation land to individual tribal members, who passed it to heirs, was once a government method for assimilating American Indians. Some parcels have several owners.

Interested sellers have until Nov. 14 to accept the offers.

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