UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR
WASHINGTON

April 8, 1935.

Memorandum for the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs:

Your memorandum of February 18 raises the question, with regard
to the Siouan Indians of North Carolina, whether this group can
organize under the Wheeler-Howard Act to receive a constitution and
charter.

Clearly, this group is not a "recognized Indian tribe now under
Federal jurisdiction", within the language of section 19 of the
Wheeler-Howard Act. Neither are the members of this group residents
of an Indian reservation (as of June 1, 1954). These Indians, there-
fore, like many other Eastern groups, can participate in the benefits
of the Wheeler-Howard Act only in so far as individual members may
be of one-half or more Indian blood. Such members may not only parti-
cipate in the educational benefits under section 11 of the Wheeler-
Howard Act and in the Indian preference rights for Indian Service
employment granted by section 12 of the Wheeler-Howard Act, but may
also organize under sections 16 and 17 of the Wheeler-Howard Act
if the Secretary of the Interior sees fit to establish for these
eligible Indians a reservation. Such a reservation might be estab-
lished either through the outright purchase of land by the Secretary
of the Interior, under section 5 of the Wheeler-Howard Act, or by
the relinquishment to the United States of land purchased by the
Indians themselves, under the same section of the Wheeler-Howard
Act, or by a combination of these two methods of acquisition. A
reservation having been established, those residing thereon will
be entitled to adopt a constitution and bylaws and to receive a
charter of incorporation. Under section 19 of the Wheeler-Howard
Act the "Indians residing on one reservation" may be recognized as
a "tribe" for the purposes of the Wheeler-Howard Act regardless of
their previous status.

In order to attain these benefits some such plan as the follow-
ing would, I think, be necessary: A group of landless Siouan Indians
of one-half blood or more, recommended by the Siouan Council for
their agricultural ability and industry, and approved by the Commis-
ioner of Indian Affairs, would purchase a suitable tract of land