SEC. 301. Findings.
Congress finds that—
during the period of 1607 through 1646, the Chickahominy Indian Tribes—
lived approximately 20 miles from Jamestown; and
were significantly involved in English-Indian affairs;
Mattaponi Indians, who later joined the Chickahominy Indians, lived a greater distance from Jamestown;
in 1646, the Chickahominy Indians moved to Mattaponi River basin, away from the English;
in 1661, the Chickahominy Indians sold land at a place known as “the cliffs” on the Mattaponi River;
in 1669, the Chickahominy Indians—
appeared in the Virginia Colony’s census of Indian bowmen; and
lived in “New Kent” County, which included the Mattaponi River basin at that time;
in 1677, the Chickahominy and Mattaponi Indians were subjects of the Queen of Pamunkey, who was a signatory to the Treaty of 1677 with the King of England;
in 1683, after a Mattaponi town was attacked by Seneca Indians, the Mattaponi Indians took refuge with the Chickahominy Indians, and the history of the two groups was intertwined for many years thereafter;
in 1695, the Chickahominy and Mattaponi Indians—
were assigned a reservation by the Virginia Colony; and
traded land of the reservation for land at the place known as “the cliffs” (which, as of the date of enactment of this Act, is the Mattaponi Indian Reservation), which had been owned by the Mattaponi Indians before 1661;
in 1711, a Chickahominy boy attended the Indian School at the College of William and Mary;
in 1726, the Virginia Colony discontinued funding of interpreters for the Chickahominy and Mattaponi Indian Tribes;
James Adams, who served as an interpreter to the Indian tribes known as of the date of enactment of this Act as the “Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe” and “Chickahominy Indian Tribe”, elected to stay with the Upper Mattaponi Indians;
today, a majority of the Upper Mattaponi Indians have “Adams” as their surname;
in 1787, Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on the Commonwealth of Virginia, mentioned the Mattaponi Indians on a reservation in King William County and said that Chickahominy Indians were “blended” with the Mattaponi Indians and nearby Pamunkey Indians;
in 1850, the census of the United States revealed a nucleus of approximately 10 families, all ancestral to modern Upper Mattaponi Indians, living in central King William County, Virginia, approximately 10 miles from the reservation;
during the period of 1853 through 1884, King William County marriage records listed Upper Mattaponis as “Indians” in marrying people residing on the reservation;
during the period of 1884 through the present, county marriage records usually refer to Upper Mattaponis as “Indians”;
in 1901, Smithsonian anthropologist James Mooney heard about the Upper Mattaponi Indians but did not visit them;
in 1928, University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Frank Speck published a book on modern Virginia Indians with a section on the Upper Mattaponis;
from 1929 until 1930, the leadership of the Upper Mattaponi Indians opposed the use of a “colored” designation in the 1930 United States census and won a compromise in which the Indian ancestry of the Upper Mattaponis was recorded but questioned;
during the period of 1942 through 1945—
the leadership of the Upper Mattaponi Indians, with the help of Frank Speck and others, fought against the induction of young men of the Tribe into “colored” units in the Armed Forces of the United States; and
a tribal roll for the Upper Mattaponi Indians was compiled;
from 1945 to 1946, negotiations took place to admit some of the young people of the Upper Mattaponi to high schools for Federal Indians (especially at Cherokee) because no high school coursework was available for Indians in Virginia schools; and
in 1983, the Upper Mattaponi Indians applied for and won State recognition as an Indian tribe.