The Office of Insular Affairs (OIA) is a unit of the United States Department of the Interior that oversees federal administration of several United States insular areas. It is the successor to the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Department, which administered certain territories from 1902 to 1939, and the Office of Territorial Affairs (formerly the Division of Territories and Island Possessions and then the Office of Territories) in the Interior Department, which was responsible for certain territories from the 1930s to the 1990s. The word "insular" comes from the Latin word insula ("island").
The OIA, led by the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Insular Areas, also has jurisdiction of "excluded areas" of Palmyra Atoll[1] and "residual administration" of Wake Island.[2]
The Division of Territories and Island Possessions, from 1934 to 1950 was responsible for administering the Interior Department's responsibilities over the territories and island possessions of the United States that were consolidated into the Interior Department. Under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, the Division served as a mediator between the territories and Federal government by performing administrative activities for the territorial governments and taking on colonization projects that furthered the interests of the United States in those areas.[3]
On July 1, 1939, the Bureau of Insular Affairs War Department and its functions, including its administrative responsibilities over the Philippine Islands was transferred to the Interior Department and consolidated with the Division by the Reorganization Plan No. II of 1939.[8]
In 1943, the Division was reorganized into three geographic and two functional branches: Hawaii and the Philippine Islands, Alaska, and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Legal, and Administrative.
In 1949, the Division's administrative responsibilities were expanded to include Guam by Executive Order 10077[9] and made effective July 1, 1950 by Executive Order 10137.[10] In 1950, the Office of Territories was established and the functions of the Division were transferred to the Office by the Secretarial Order No. 2577.[11]
The first Director of Territories was Ernest Gruening, who served from 1934 to 1939, and later served as the territorial governor of Alaska and then as one of the first senators elected from Alaska upon statehood.
The major publication from the Division is the Annual Reports of the Department of the Interior that has a section on the Division of Territories and Island Possessions written by the Director outlining the Division's activities over the past fiscal year. Additionally, the Division published general information serial pamphlets on Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii, and later general information on the Trust Territory. The Division also published specific reports pertaining to Alaska's postwar period and road and agricultural development efforts, as well as a report on surplus property of its administrative areas.
Office of Territories
In 1950, the Division's name was changed to the Office of Territories and the office's work was significantly reduced in 1952 after Puerto Rico attained commonwealth status and in 1959 Alaska and Hawaii were granted statehood.
Office of Territorial Affairs
In 1971, the Office of Territories was temporarily abolished and administration was coordinated by a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Territorial Affairs in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Land Management. In 1973, the agency was reconstituted as the Office of Territorial Affairs, which remained the designation until 1980, when an Office of Assistant Secretary for Territorial and International Affairs was created. (The designation "international" refers to what became the freely associated states of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau.)
Today, the Interior Department, through the Office of Insular Affairs, continues to be responsible for the outlying insular areas including American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
^United States Department of Interior. "Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1884-1956 (from 1936-1950 includes the report of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions)". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^Maxwell, Richard; Walker, Evans (1963). Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Office of Territories (Record Group 126). Washington: National Archives and Records Service General Services Administration. pp. 1–7.
Sources
Emerson, Rupert, et al. America's Pacific Dependences: A Survey of American Colonial Policies and of Administration and Progress toward Self-Rule in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Samoa and the Trust Territory. (American Institute of Pacific Relations 1949).
National Archives and Records Administration (Richard S. Maxwell and Evans Walker, comps.), Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Office of Territories, Preliminary Inventory No. 154 (1963).
Perkins, Whitney T. Denial of Empire: The United States and its Dependencies. (A. W. Sythoff 1962).
Van Cleve, Ruth G. The Office of Territorial Affairs (Praeger Publishers 1974).
