Paying to Play Indian: The Dawes Rolls and the Legacy of $5 Indians
Wikimedia Commons This poster from the era of the Dawes Rolls advertised land for Native Americans prompting opportunistic white men to pay to be Indian.
Alysa Landry
by
Alysa Landry
Mar 21, 2017

Dawes rolls rife with ‘opportunistic white men’ and early appropriation.

It may be fashionable to play Indian now, but it was also trendy 125 years ago when people paid $5 apiece for falsified documents declaring them Native on the Dawes Rolls.

These so-called five-dollar Indians paid government agents under the table in order to reap the benefits that came with having Indian blood. Mainly white men with an appetite for land, five-dollar Indians paid to register on the Dawes Rolls, earning fraudulent enrollment in tribes along with benefits inherited by generations to come.

“These were opportunistic white men who wanted access to land or food rations,” said Gregory Smithers, associate professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University. “These were people who were more than happy to exploit the Dawes Commission—and government agents, for $5, were willing to turn a blind eye to the graft and corruption.”

The Dawes Commission, established in 1893 to enforce the General Allotment Act of 1887 (or the Dawes Act), was charged with convincing tribes to cede their land to the United States and divide remaining land into individual allotments. The commission also required Indians to claim membership in only one tribe and register on the Dawes Rolls, what the government meant to be a definitive record of individuals with Indian blood.

The Curtis Act, passed in 1898, targeted the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole), forcing them to accept allotments and register on the Dawes Rolls. The two acts—which came during a “period of murky social context” after the Civil War when white and black men were intermarrying with Native American women, aimed to help the government keep track of “real” Indians while accelerating efforts to assimilate Indian people into white culture, Smithers said.

“By 1865, African Americans and white Americans were moving into the Midwest, into the Indian and Oklahoma territories, all vying for some patch of land they could call their own and live out their Jeffersonian view of independence,” he said. “The federal government poured a lot of effort and energy into the Dawes Commission, but at the same time it was very hard for both Native and American governments to keep track of who was who.”

The Dawes Commission set up tents in Indian Territory, said Bill Welge, director emeritus of the Oklahoma Historical Society’s Office of American Indian Culture and Preservation. There, field clerks scoured written records, took oral testimony and generated enrollment cards for individuals determined to have Indian blood.

That included authentic Indians, Welge said. But it also included lots of people with questionable heritage.

“Commissioners took advantage of their positions and enrolled people who had very minimal or questionable connections to the tribes,” he said. “They were not adverse to taking money under the table.”
The Dawes Commission, established in 1893 to enforce the General Allotment Act of 1887 (or the Dawes Act), was charged with convincing tribes to cede their land to the United States and divide remaining land into individual allotments. The commission also required Indians to claim membership in only one tribe and register on the Dawes Rolls.

The implications of such shady practices are enormous now, Smithers said. Five-dollar Indians passed their unearned benefits to heirs who still lay claim to tribal citizenship and associated privileges.

“Now we have people who are white but who can trace their names back to the rolls used by tribal nations to ascertain who has rights as citizens,” he said. “That means we have white people who have the ability to vote at large; it means political rights; it means the potential to influence tribal policy on a whole range of issues; it means people have access to health care, education and employment. The implications are quite profound for people who got away with fraud.”

On the flip side, while non-Natives paid to play Indian, many authentic Indians who didn’t trust the government chose not to register with the Dawes Rolls at all, said Gene Norris, a genealogist at the Cherokee National Historical Society. That means people with legitimate claims to tribal enrollment and the benefits are now excluded.

“Native Americans are the only racial group defined by blood,” Norris said. “Even that was arbitrary. In the 1890s, siblings who talked to different commissioners emerged with different blood quantum. Because they didn’t apply together, some of them have different blood degrees.”

In short, the Dawes Rolls forever changed the way the federal government defined Indians—and, in many cases, the way Indians still define themselves.

In 1900, one woman registered on the rolls with 1/256 Cherokee blood, Norris said. Now, some enrolled members of the Cherokee Nation have as little as 1/8,196 Indian blood.

The Dawes Rolls—even now—are a murky and “very inaccurate” gauge of Indian citizenship, he said. In the 2000 Census, the number of people claiming Cherokee ancestry was three times that of official tribal enrollment.

“That’s what happens when the federal government established the rules, not the Natives,” he said.

Smithers has no estimate of the number of people who fraudulently registered on the Dawes Rolls—or who lay false claim to Indian citizenship now. But five-dollar Indians did not represent an isolated case of appropriation.

“What we had was simply white people claiming to be Indian,” he said. “They were early wannabes, just like we have today. Five-dollar Indian is just another term for that.”

Elizabeth Warren Releases DNA Test Indicating She Has Native American Ancestor

By Molly Olmstead
Oct 15, 201811:46 AM

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks before a background with the words, "National Press Club" printed on it.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Win McNamee/Getty Images
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in response to attacks by President Trump and other Republicans, released on Monday a DNA test that concluded there is “strong evidence” she has a Native American ancestor.

In a video released Monday, Warren asked Stanford University professor and genetics expert Carlos Bustamante what the “facts” said. He replied, “The facts suggest that you absolutely have Native American ancestry in your pedigree.”

Republicans have accused Warren of falsely claiming Cherokee and Delaware Indian heritage to get ahead in her academic career. Warren once listed herself as a minority law teacher, but she insisted she did not use that claimed status in her application to teach at Harvard Law and other colleges and universities. Warren has claimed to have no documentation but insisted it is part of family lore

According to the executive summary of the test, which Warren posted online, Warren has at least 95 percent European ancestry. “We find strong evidence that a DNA sample of primarily European descent also contains Native American ancestry from an ancestor in the sample’s pedigree 6-10 generations ago,” according to the summary. It’s worth noting that the test is not entirely conclusive, as inconsistencies and coincidences in genetic tests still allow room for some uncertainty when sorting out ethnic backgrounds.

If the possible ancestor fell on the more recent side of that scale, that would make Warren 1/32 American Indian. If the ancestor were further back in the genealogy, the percentage would be much smaller.
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In the video she also depicted her upbringing “on the ragged edge of the middle class” in Oklahoma, and her brothers, a nephew, and a cousin who is a Cherokee Nation citizen, attested that her father’s family was opposed to her parents’ marriage because of her mother’s claim to have Native American heritage. “I’m not enrolled in a tribe; only tribes determine tribal citizenship,” she says in the video. “I understand and respect that distinction. But my family history is my family history.”

Warren also addressed the claims of abusing affirmative action when she narrates the “twists and turns” that ultimately led to her career as a law professor. Various faculty members from colleges where she taught said in the video that her ancestry had no bearing on hiring.

In a report from September, the Globe concluded from interviews and documents that the law schools that hired her were for the large part unaware of her claim of Native American ancestry. One professor who had participated in her hiring process could not remember if her heritage came up in the discussion but told the Globe it would have had no bearing on the vote.

In July, Trump told a crowd at one of his rallies that if Warren took a DNA test, he would pay $1 million to her “favorite charity if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.”

Trump had mocked Warren’s claim during the 2016 campaign, following a line of attack set by her Senate rival, Scott Brown, in 2012. Trump, who has repeatedly referred to Warren as “Pocahontas,” has been heavily criticized for his use of a racial slur to mock Warren’s claim. Last week, he again accused Warren of “faking” her heritage.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters on Monday that Warren’s DNA test did not interest her, according to the Washington Post. “I know that everybody likes to pick their junk science or sound science depending on the conclusion it seems some days,” she said.

President Trump also dismissed Warren’s announcement on Monday. In response to finding out the news, he asked reporters: “Who cares?”

Monday’s video, which addresses an old controversy to challenge Donald Trump by diving into her personal life to an unusual degree, appears to indicate a likely 2020 presidential bid

rentAcock:
Trump made Obama release his birth certificate and now he's made Elizabeth Warren release her DNA result, yet he wouldn't release his tax returns, something every president before him has done. Okay, he promised to donate $1million to any charity of her choice if she released her DNA result showing that she's part Native Indian and still he has refused to followup with the donation. Democrats should stop falling into Trump's traps, the more they provide such sensitive and personal evidence to refute his claims, the more it rallies his base.

KingSango:


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KingSango:


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls-YVHO9Uzw

This Elizabeth Warren whose family is recorded as English Pilgrims to America saying she's an Indian is funnier than White People claiming they were Egyptians and they built the Pyramids.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubKtMKfxVjA

KingSango:


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KingSango:
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KingSango:
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