Fort Defiance Indian Agency

Guide to  ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

The Fort Defiance Agency is one of five currently operating administrative jurisdictions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Navajo Reservation. 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
Fort Defiance Agency is another name for the historical Navajo Agency, as that agency was located at Fort Defiance, Arizona. This agency was also known for a time during the mid-1950s as the Southern Navajo 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.

See listings and cross-references under Navajo Agency.