After reading the module information this week, I agree with the thesis statement “The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) and the Native corporation system have been good for Alaska Natives”. Although these acts had positive and negative impacts on the native people, I believe that the positive impacts were greater.

The ANCSA was noted as one of the largest land claims of its time. “In return for letting the federal government "extinguish" their claims to most Alaskan land, Natives received 44 million acres and a cash payment of $962.5 million” (MindEdge, 2022). This structure of negotiation seemed to treat the Natives fairly, giving them a substantial amount of money and opportunity to enroll in stock for one of the corporations under the Native corporation system. There has been success in the corporations, “many of those corporations have grown into successful businesses that generate substantial dividends and provide thousands of jobs for Native shareholders” (MindEdge, 2022). This again shows the positive impacts over time of the ANCSA and Native corporation system.

I would revise the thesis statement to be “The Alaskan Native Claim Settlement Act (ANCSA) and the Native Corporation System have positively impacted the Alaska Natives by providing economic success and monetary settlements in trade for land”.

Jonathan K

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) was a new approach by Congress to federal Indian policy. ANCSA extinguished aboriginal land title in Alaska." This was something that the U.S. Government was trying to do to help settle Alaska once it had been acquired from the Russians. The goal was to get people to settle there and to allow people to work in tandem with the natives there to essentially settle Alaska. Initially this worked this gave the natives almost 1 Billion dollars for the land that they had lost. The first twenty years of the corporations created by the 900 million dollars had all been doing very poor, and the natives were not making any money. Something big happened after that the discovery of oil after that they generated over 50 billion dollars in oil and were able to start paying the people of the state dividends. This helped the state blow up and provide jobs for the natives in the area. ANCSA and the Native corporation system was originally bad for Alaska Natives, however due to the discovery of oil this has allowed the natives to be open to job chances that they never had before.