In the late 1880s, there were Native Americans in Robeson County, North Carolina who said they were related to the Roanoke settlers. A politician from North Carolina named Hamilton McMillan learned about this claim. He found that a lot of the words in this Native American tribe's language were a lot like some old English words that are no longer used. Also a lot of the people in the tribe had family names that were the same as the names of the colonists'. McMillan thought that these Native Americans were the descendents of the Roanoke settlers. Because of this, he helped pass a bill called the "Croatan Bill" on February 10, 1885. This bill said that the Native American people in Robeson county were officially called "Croatan."