Phase Four: Erasure. After entanglement came enumeration. After enumeration came removal by record.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States imposed enrollment systems that reshaped Indigenous identity through federal authority. Among the most consequential were the Dawes Rolls, used to divide communal land and redefine tribal belonging.
The Dawes Rolls did not simply document people.
They categorized them.
Individuals were placed into rigid classifications such as “by blood,” “freedmen,” and “intermarried,” often based on appearance, rumor, or the judgment of federal enumerators. These labels carried permanent legal consequences. African ancestry became grounds for separation even when Indigenous lineage was known, lived, and recognized within the community.
Families were split across categories.
Children were enrolled differently than their parents.
Kinship was overridden by paperwork.
Once recorded, these classifications followed descendants for generations, determining access to land, citizenship, and recognition. What had existed through shared history and community was reduced to entries on a roll.
This marked the transition from entanglement to erasure.
Identity no longer depended on belonging or lineage alone. It depended on federal approval. Absence from a roll, or placement in the wrong category, became justification for exclusion. Over time, roll closures and enrollment restrictions solidified these outcomes.
Erasure did not require open violence.
It operated through clerks, registrars, and policy.
By redefining who counted on paper, entire communities could be diminished without removal. Black American Indians were left navigating systems that questioned their existence while relying on records designed to exclude them.
This is why identity disputes persist today.
The disappearance was administrative.
The consequences were permanent.
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