The non-Chippewa in Rocky Boy are there on the basis of claiming adoptee status. Some Chippewa believe they intended to gain control of tribal resources after passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, when the Chippewa reorganized as a tribe. No verifiable documentation confirms that the tribe's clans and families adopted such a great number of adoptees in earlier years, which is the only way they could have become full members of the tribe. Ethnologist John C. Ewers has never found documentation to show that the Department of Interior formalized the "adoptee" status of the Cree and Métis who settled on the reservation.