Great Lakes Indian Agency (Wisconsin)

The Great Lakes Agency is a currently operating agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Its supervising office is the Minneapolis Area Office.

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Chippewa, Potawatomi; after 1949, Winnebago in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, Stockbridge and Oneida in Wisconsin, Ottawa and Potawatomi in Michigan, and the Saginaw, Swan Creek and Black River Bands of Chippewa in Michigan.

History
The Great Lakes Agency was established in 1936 as the successor to the Lac du Flambeau Agency, serving various bands of Chippewa and Potawatomi Indians in Wisconsin and Michigan. In 1949, it absorbed the Tomah Agency and was renamed the Great Lakes Consolidated Agency. In 1952, it was made an area field office of the Minneapolis Area Office, but was returned to agency status in 1956.

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.

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1936 thru 1940. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, rolls 170-171. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.

Some records of the Great Lakes Agency are in the Great Lakes Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Chicago. A brief inventory of those records is available online under the title of Great Lakes Indian Agency, WI and under Great Lakes Consolidated Indian Agency, WI on the National Archives web site.