Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: The Haliwa Saponi Indian Tribe of North Carolina is a confederated Tribe that is a political successor to the historical Saponi Nation and to the Nansemond and affiliated Tribes that inhabited the Piedmont and coastal regions of what are now Virginia and North Carolina. Haliwa is a geographical designation that is derived from the physical location of the Tribe, which is primarily in Halifax and Warren Counties, North Carolina. In North Carolina, in 1733, the Saponi Nation made peace with the Tuscarora and moved to a portion of the Tuscarora reservation in modern Bertie County, North Carolina, occupying a village known as Sapona Town.
In 1754, Captain William Hurst observed the residence of Saponi warriors and many women and children on Colonel William Eaton’s lands in the Granville District (modern Bertie, Granville, Warren, and Vance Counties, North Carolina). In 1761, the Saponi Indians were living on 10,000 acres of land in the Granville District on and near the Roanoke River along with the Meherrin and Tuscarora. In Virginia, as acknowledged by Congress in the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017 ( Public Law 115–121 ; 132 Stat. 59 et seq.), there were two sections of the Nansemond Tribe, one of which remained in Virginia and was accorded Federal recognition in 2018 concurrently with five other Tribes still resident in Virginia by that same statute.
Another section of the Nansemond Tribe had migrated to North Carolina due to hostilities in Virginia, and today enrolled citizens of the Haliwa Saponi Indian Tribe include lineal descendants of those Nansemond. After the American Revolution (1775–1783), the Nansemond and Saponi merged together for mutual protection and survival in Halifax, Warren, Nash, and Franklin Counties, in an area known as The Meadows . Among the surrounding communities, the Haliwa Saponi Indian Tribe has often been referred to as the Meadows Indians .
In 1889, Warren County, North Carolina resident G.B. Alston wrote to the Smithsonian Institution anthropologist James Mooney and confirmed the residence of a Tribe of 300–600 Indians in the Meadows in Halifax and Warren Counties. The Tribe has continually existed as a separate community, with leaders exhibiting clear political authority. While local non-Indians recognized the Indian and Tribal identity of the Haliwa Saponi, others insisted on classifying Tribal citizens as colored rather than Indian, due to segregation.
During the era of school segregation, the Tribe opened its own school, the Haliwa Indian School, operated with the Tribe’s own funds. Since 1957 the State of North Carolina has had continuous dealings with the recognized political leaders of the Haliwa Saponi. In 1957, the Tribe opened the Haliwa Indian School. Between 1960 and 1963, students from the Haliwa Saponi Indian Tribe attended Bacone College for Indians in Muscogee, Oklahoma. In 1965, the Haliwa Saponi Indian Tribe won a lawsuit against the North Carolina Division of Vital Statistics to correct the race of Haliwa Saponi citizens on official records to read Indian .
In 1965 the State of North Carolina took formal legislative action recognizing the Haliwa Saponi Indian Tribe. The United States has been providing Federal funding to the Tribe from the Department of Education’s Office of Indian Education for half a century. The United States has been providing Federal funding to the Tribe for housing and related infrastructure development from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development pursuant to the Federal Native American Housing and Self-Determination Act for 25 years.
In 2000, the Tribe opened the Haliwa Saponi Tribal School, a charter school under the State of North Carolina, at the location of the original Haliwa Indian School, and the school currently receives Federal funds from the Department of Education, Office of Indian Education for Haliwa Saponi Indian students.
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- 132 Stat. 59
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