Historical documentation has long been an issue that deeply concerns Native Americans, particularly for those Indigenous nations east of the Mississippi river. Eastern tribes have contended with colonial violence and repression for well over 400 years, and as a result, many may have a very difficult time establishing a “paper trail” to their ancestral claims, especially those tribes originating in states that had historical “no-Indian” policies and/or racial purity laws. This is not a coincidence, but rather by colonizing design. Every major source of records that a tribe might rely on is deeply flawed for some eastern tribes, leaving many Indigenous people unable to succeed in applying for federal recognition by default.

While the US census is often cited to discredit Indigenous ancestry, it has a fundamental recording error that has been used to erase Native peoples in the eastern United States. While some argue that not having census-designated Native American ancestors means that one is not Native American, “Indian” was not recorded as a race in the US census until 1860, after over 250 years of genocide and colonization. Prior to 1860, Native Americans recorded in the US Census were classified as White, “Mulatto”, or Black, depending on the opinion of the census taker, with the exception of special Indian census efforts, which were intermittent, and rarely recorded smaller tribes or inter-tribal communities. This means that for many Native Americans in the eastern United States, their ancestors could not be legally recorded as American Indian until over 250 years after European contact. During that time, their Native American ancestors were erased and documented as “non-Indian”, which in turn allowed states to declare themselves free from any Indigenous occupants. These “Indian-free” states permanently damaged the ability of tribes in those areas to organize and be recognized as sovereign in two decisive steps. First, they acted to dismantle any centralized tribal authority through violence, intimidation, forced relocation, and legal action. Then, through racial purity policies and the census, they removed the possibility for individual Native Americans from those targeted groups to be recorded accurately, all but erasing the survival of those tribes from historical records in the effected areas. Yet, despite having centuries of concerted efforts to silence Indigenous communities, you will still find Conestoga-Susquehannock families marked as “Indian” in the census from 1860, the very first year it was possible. Today, several tribes that had previously been declared extinct have been found to be very much alive, some of which have even achieved federal recognition status!

It is for the above complexities that the Conestoga-Susquehannock Tribe is not in the business of telling someone that they are not American Indian. In most cases, our tribe doesn’t even have the resources to declare that with 100% certainty because a modern-day applicant will have hundreds of ancestors to research. When someone submits their enrollment application, we will only ever determine whether or not the ancestor they claim as Susquehannock meets our enrollment criteria. We understand that our enrollment criteria does not include everyone who believes that they are Conestoga-Susquehannock but we ask those who believe they have undocumented ancestry to respect our policies and enrollment standards. These standards for enrollment were not concocted to exclude or accuse anyone of being dishonest, they were thoughtfully created to protect the interests of the entire tribe. While it may seem unfair to some, putting the needs of the community over the needs of the individual is a foundational value we encourage all those who believe they are of Conestoga-Susquehannock heritage to embrace.

Though historical records are indeed a flawed tool, often rife with bias to erase evidence of Native Americans, the Conestoga-Susquehannock Tribe still considers them to be an essential grounding mechanism for determining enrollment eligibility. After 400 years of contact, intermarrying, violence, and repression, there are countless stories of Native American ancestors with no clear evidence to support them. Some of those stories are likely true, but most are likely not, and without the grounding mechanism of historical documentation, the committee cannot make objective and consistent enrollment decisions. The Conestoga-Susquehannock tribe cannot and will not make any exception for the requirement that every tribal member show historically documented evidence to support their claim of being Indigenous to the Susquehanna. This requirement protects the interests of the entire tribe, and enables us to be effective conservationists of our culture.