1930: off the reservation means "colored" (Virginia, signed 4 Mar. 1930)

SUMMARY1930: off the reservation means "colored" (Virginia, signed 4 Mar. 1930) [Connections: Virginia & Eastern Shore, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDCode §67 (1930): "Every person in whom there is ascertainable any negro blood shall be deemed and taken to be a colored person." Only "members of Indian tribes living on reservations allotted them by the Commonwealth of Virginia," with "one-fourth or more of Indian blood and less than one-sixteenth of negro blood," kept the Indian classification, and only "so long as they are domiciled on said reservations." Encyclopedia Virginia says Indians in Amherst and Rockbridge counties "henceforth would be classified as" colored. It quotes George Major Cook (Pamunkey) objecting on 1 Feb. 1930: "now with one last stroke of the pen you are trying to take our very name."

PATTERNThe Indian classification now depended on living on a reservation. Leaving the reservation, or never having one (as with the Gingaskin after 1813), meant being classed "colored."

LENS (WW9)"One last stroke of the pen," said in 1930 by a Pamunkey man

OPENHow this applied to Eastern Shore descendants, whose reservation had been terminated in 1813

SOURCEEncyclopedia Virginia, "Colored Persons and Indians Defined (1930)"; Encyclopedia Virginia, Racial Integrity Laws.