Summer 2006, Vol. 38, No. 2 | Genealogy Notes

The document outlines a request for monthly driver’s license records between 2018 and 2023. It asks for 11 fields of information that would potentially be on a driver’s license ― including citizenship status and eye color. (The Census Bureau’s request for driver’s license records was first reported by The Associated Press.).

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s transportation secretary is telling the U.S. Census Bureau that her agency won’t provide driver’s license records as part of a Trump administration effort to.
Access demographic, economic and population data from the U.S. Explore census data with visualizations and view tutorials.

By James P. Collins

An 1890 Bureau of the Census report on Indians has a few items of genealogical importance. This portrait of Governor Blakesnake was accompanied by the date and place of his death. (Misc. Docs. of the House of Representatives for the 1st Session of the 52nd Congress, 1891—92, serial set volume 3016)

An examination of the annual census records from 1860 to 1890 shows the beginnings of the enumeration of Native Americans in the census. Article I, section 2, of the Constitution requires a census to be taken every 10 years so that seats in the House of Representatives can be apportioned among the states. Section 2 excludes 'Indians not taxed'—those Indians living on reservations or those roaming in unsettled areas of the country.

The first federal decennial census that clearly identifies any Native Americans is the 1860 census.1 The instructions to the 1860 census enumerators defined who was to be counted and who was not:

Indians not taxed are not to be enumerated. The families of Indians who have renounced tribal rule, and who under state or territory laws exercise the rights of citizens, are to be enumerated.2

Most genealogy guides that address Native Americans in the census incorrectly state that the first federal decennial census in which at least a portion of the Indian population is enumerated is 1870. Although the 1870 census schedule is the first to list 'Indian' as a choice in the column heading for 'Color,' Native Americans were enumerated earlier. Even though the 1860 census schedule does not include 'Indian' as a choice in the column heading for 'Color,' enumerators nevertheless followed the instructions cited in the previous paragraph and recorded more than 40,000 Indians.

The instructions to enumerators for conducting the 1870 census are essentially the same as those for the 1860 census. The instructions for conducting the 1880 census include a definition for 'Indians not taxed' and an expanded description of Indians to be enumerated:

By the phrase 'Indians not taxed' is meant Indians living on reservations under the care of Government agents, or roaming individually, or in bands, over unsettled tracts of country.
Indians not in tribal relations, whether full-bloods or half-breeds, who are found mingled with the white population, residing in white families, engaged as servants or laborers, or living in huts or wigwams on the outskirts of towns or settlements are to be regarded as a part of the ordinary population of the country for the constitutional purpose of the apportionment of Representatives among the States, and are to be embraced in the enumeration.3

The 1880 census act clearly states that 'Indians not taxed shall be omitted from the enumeration' but then adds:

the Superintendent of [the] Census may employ special agents or other means to make an enumeration of all Indians not taxed, within the jurisdiction of the United States, with such information as to their condition as may be obtainable.4

Under this provision and using specially designed forms, agents enumerated Indians living near military reservations in California, Dakota Territory, and Washington Territory.5

Because federal government officials made actual counts or estimates of not taxed Indians, we can calculate the percentage of Indians included in each census:

Census	Taxed Indians (enumerated)	Not taxed Indians	Total Indians	Percent enumerated
1860	44,021	295,400	339,421	13
1870	25,731	287,981	313,712	8
1880	66,407	240,136	306,543	22

These figures exclude all Native Americans living in Alaska. The Census Bureau reported the 1860 and 1870 not taxed Indian totals as part of the taking of the census for those years. In 1860, an attempt to provide an actual count was made, but in 1870, an estimate for portions of the not taxed Indian population was made. In 1880, the Office of Indian Affairs completed a count of not taxed reservation or agency Indians.6

Although most states and territories showed increases in taxed Indians between 1860 and 1870, these increases were more than offset by large decreases in California (10,557), New Mexico (9,198), and Michigan (1,246). Between 1870 and 1880, all regions of the country showed increases in taxed Indians, particularly in the west, where the number increased by more than 30,000.7

The count of taxed Indians in each census includes a number of persons of mixed Indian/white heritage. A close review of the census returns for Washington Territory identified many instances of mixed heritage, the majority of whom were the children of Indian women and white men.8 For the most part, persons of mixed heritage were identified in the column for color as 'HB' (half-breed) or '½ I.' A report of the 1870 census describes how persons identified as 'half-breed' were counted:

Where persons reported as 'Half-breeds' are found residing with whites, adopting their habits of life and methods of industry, such persons are to be treated as belonging to the white population. Where, on the other hand, they are found in communities composed wholly, or mainly of Indians, the opposite construction is taken.9

On this page from the 1860 census, the enumerator indicated persons of mixed Indian/white heritage as HB, or half-breed. (Records of the Bureau of the Census, RG 29)

There are some cases in which the coding for persons of mixed heritage is 'I' or 'W' and, in rare cases, 'Mu' (mulatto) or 'B' (black).

Occasionally, Indian reservations are identified in the census, but only rarely are any Indians enumerated. As has been stated, Indians living on reservations were not taxed and, therefore, not counted. A review of the Washington Territory census returns, for example, identified a few reservations, but no Indians were enumerated.

Washington Territory
Census year	Reservations in existence	Reservations in the census
1860	9	1
1870	10	6
1880	14	1

There are rare instances in which Indians living on reservations were enumerated. The 1880 census for Dakota Territory, for example, identifies 17 persons on the Sisseton and Wahpeton Reservation as Indian, but nearly all are of mixed blood.10

Although reservations are sometimes identified in the 1870 census, Indianas living on the reservation rarely are enumerated. (Records of the Bureau of the Census, RG 29)

The federal government established many reservations in the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) between 1860 and 1880 and before. The 1860 census has an enumeration for the territory identified as 'Indian Lands' at the end of microfilm roll 52 for the state of Arkansas, but no census exists for 1870 or 1880. Although the 1860 census of Indian Lands identifies the Choctaw, Cherokee, and Creek Nations and the Chickasaw District, no Indians are included in the enumeration because the Indians there lived on reservations and were not taxed.11

Researchers will find significant variations in the recording of names for Native Americans in the census. Sometimes there are what appear to be names in an Indian language or the probable Indian name translated into English. In many cases, only a single name, either the given or surname, is recorded. Frequently, enumerators recorded an English given name without any surname or used 'Indian' as a surnam

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