Editing Indian Reorganization Act (section)

===Background===
[[File:John Collier and Chiefs.png|thumb|250px|Collier in a 1934 meeting with South Dakota Blackfoot Indian chiefs to discuss the Wheeler-Howard Act.]]

The process of allotment started with the [[Dawes Act|General Allotment Act]] of 1887. By 1934, two-thirds of Indian land had converted to traditional private ownership (i.e., it was owned in [[fee simple]]). Most of that had been sold by  Indian allottees, often because they could not pay local taxes on the lands they were newly responsible for. The IRA provided a mechanism for the recovery of land that had been previously sold, including land that had been sold to tribal Indians. They would lose individual property under the law.

John Collier was appointed Commissioner of the Indian Bureau (it is now called the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs]], BIA) in April 1933 by President [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]]. He had the full support of his boss, Secretary of the Interior [[Harold L. Ickes]], who was also an expert on Indian issues.<ref>T. H. Watkins, ''Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874-1952'' (1990), pp 530-48.</ref>

The federal government held land in trust for many tribes. Numerous claims cases had been presented to Congress because of failures in the government's management of such lands. There were particular grievances and claims due to the government's failure to provide for sustainable forestry. The [[Indian Claims Act of 1946]] included a requirement that the Interior Department manage Indian forest resources "on the principle of sustained-yield management." Representative [[Edgar Howard]] of Nebraska, co-sponsor of the Act and Chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, explained that the purpose of the provision was "to assure a proper and permanent management of the Indian Forest" under modern sustained-yield methods to "assure that the Indian forests will be permanently productive and will yield continuous revenues to the tribes."<ref>{{cite book|author1=Shaunnagh Dorsett|author2=Lee Godden|title=A Guide to Overseas Precedents of Relevance to Native Title|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sngSc7rT5oAC&pg=PA228|year=1998|publisher=Aboriginal Studies Press|page=228|isbn=9780855753375}}</ref>