Shiprock Indian Agency (New Mexico)

The Shiprock Agency is one of five currently operating administrative jurisdictions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Navajo Reservation. It is located in Shiprock, New Mexico and its supervising office is the Navajo Area Office. A map of the roads on the Navajo Reservation, created in 2008, is available online.

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Navajo

History
The original Navajo Agency was established in 1852 for the Navajo Indians in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. After 1901, this agency was gradually divided into several independent agencies. One of those was the Northern Navajo Agency which operated from at least 1903 to 1935 in Shiprock, New Mexico and was sometimes called the Shiprock Agency. It was also sometimes called the San Juan Agency. In 1935, the independent agencies were consolidated into one agency called the Navajo Service, with headquarters in Window Rock, Arizona.

In 1949, the Window Rock Area Office was established and a Navajo Agency was created under the Area Office. Some of the former agencies were reduced to subagency status at that time, one of which was the Shiprock Subagency, which later became an independent agency..

Records
Agencies and subagencies were created as administrative offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its predecessors. Their purpose was (and is) to manage Indian affairs with the tribes, to enforce policies, and to assist in maintaining the peace. The names and location of these agencies may have changed, but their purpose remained basically the same. Many of the records of genealogical value (for the tribe and tribal members) were created by and maintained by the agencies.

Some general records for the Shiprock Agency and the San Juan Training School, 1903-1955 are in the Pacific Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Laguna Niguel, California.

Some records for the Shiprock Subagency, 1940-1980, are in the National Archives Rocky Mountain Region (Denver).