Talk:Dawes Rolls

message: This article needs some research and rewriting. Including these areas:
:*The Dawes Rolls were created by the Dawes Commission, not the Dawes Act.
:*The Dawes Rolls do not include all Indians, generally only memebers of the Five Civilized Tribes.
:*John Ross, Cherokee chief, was only 1/8th "blood".
:*There are several legal cases recorded of non-Indians bribing Indian officials in order to acquire an Indian allotment.
:*At least one of the Nations enrolled their former black slaves, who may or may not have had Indian "blood".
— Dan, 16 Aug 2004
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Original Article moved here from Main Page
Dawes Rolls are registered enrollments of Native American people in the United States under the Dawes Act of 1884.
The Dawes Act requirment for enrollment was not generally actually accomplished until well after the passage of the Act, in the early 20th century.  The prevailing legal theory of the time was that one needed to have Native American blood in excess of 25% ("quarter blood") in order to be considered a Native ("American Indian").
These enrollments have important legal ramifications today.  For most tribal groups they represented the first written records of membership.  Generally one can prove Native American status sufficient for participation in programs limited to Natives by showing lineal descent from a person listed on the Dawes Rolls.
It should be noted that at the time of the Dawes enrollment, there would be little incentive, and considerable disincentives, for being enrolled if one's status were questionable.  Considerable disabilities, both legal and social, were inherent in being considered a Native American in that era.  Social stigmitization of being considered racially mixed was considerable, especially so in some areas, and Native Americans were additionally in an inferior legal position in many jurisdictions.
As unfortunate as this seems to modern sensibilites, these circumstances have led to one valuable attribute of the Dawes Rolls.  At the time, very few real benefits accrued to one simply because of Native status. There were few petroleum royalties, no casino shares, or other pecuniary motives for wishing to be considered Native American.  Thus, persons listed in the Dawes Rolls are almost certainly to be genuine Native Americans, not simply persons wishing to "pass" as Natives.  This is important for establishing relationships in the modern era, where many people desire to be considered as Natives for the considerable benefits that can accrue, especially to members of certain groups, due to the factors listed above, and others.
Another unfortunate aspect of these circumstances is that many persons who were largely or almost entirely of Native blood did not desire to be considered such due to the tremendous stigmatization that existed in some circles, meaning that hundreds of thousands of Americans today are of largely Native ancestry but unable to document it through use of the Dawes Rolls, and must find another means of documentation should they desire it.
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There’s a couple of things I’d like to say.  First of all, many people of Non Indian ancestry applied to the Dawes Rolls because they wanted allotments.  There were even shady lawyers traveling around the country at the time coercing white people to try and enroll for the allotments.  This is part of the reasons that over 150,000 applications were denied.   Only about 100,000 were accepted while over 250,000 applied.
Second, while some American Indians such as Redbird Smith “initially” didn’t enroll, he as many others were coerced into enrolling later.  Other American Indians that refused enrollment were forced to enroll by the local authorities, and also, many more were enrolled against their will by people in their communities. There were probably only handfuls that didn’t enroll either because they didn’t want to or because of the residency requirements.  Allotments were an incentive to enroll, so most choose to.  You also say that there are hundreds of thousands of Americans today of largely Native Ancestry who can’t document it through Dawes.  This is also a myth.  We’re probably only talking about a few thousand in regards to the Dawes Roll.  And even that’s pushing it. If we’re talking about the entire geographical United States in regards to people with Native ancestry and not documented, then of course it would be more. But with that said, having Native ancestry is no more then a legend for many.  In regards to the Dawes Roll, most of the people rejected were rejected because they were deemed not to be Cherokee, Choctaw,etc, by blood,  and they could not prove it.  Since many Cherokees at the time had blood quantums of 1/8 or 1/16, it would be hard to tell a white person from a Cherokee, thus these people who tried to enroll tried to pass themselves off as mixed blood Cherokees.  There probably are a small number of people today with at least some Native blood who are descended from the few people that didn’t enroll.  Many people claim to be these people yet they cannot document themselves to many of the other Rolls and censuses of the 1800's before Dawes such as the Drennan Roll taken after the Trail of Tears. Many descendants of rejectees falsely assume they have Native blood when in fact they are the descendants of white people trying to get allotments.  I suggest you study the history of the Dawes Roll more in debt. LightingBug (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 06:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
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