March 20, 1924, is a moment in Virginia’s history when the governor, the General Assembly, state officials, and some in the general public believed that citizens in the Commonwealth of Virginia needed to remain separate in order to maintain racial purity, and codified that belief into law. The Law to Preserve Racial Integrity, commonly known as the Racial Integrity Act (RIA), has a long-lasting legacy that continues to impact minority groups in Virginia today, especially Indigenous people.
Through the passing of this law, the Anglo-Saxon Club of America accomplished their mission of maintaining racial purity and order in Virginia. The organization wrote privately to Governor E. Lee Trinkle expressing their gratitude,
By unanimous vote of Virginia Post No. 1, Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America, I have been directed to express to you the thanks of our organization…Your approval and support of our Racial Integrity Bill was most gratifying, as was the promptness of the registration of yourself and family.1
The organization also praised Trinkle’s willingness to encourage governors in other U.S. states to pass similar legislation.2 While this letter was private, the Anglo-Saxon Club Post No. 1 was able to make their gratitude for Governor Trinkle’s leadership known publicly as well. On April 19, 1924, the club posted their thanks in The News Leader.
As soon as Governor Trinkle signed the RIA, Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker, director of the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and the entire state apparatus, began a paper genocide by eliminating Indigenous people from Virginia’s written record in order to maintain that “purity.”
Anglo Saxon Club letter
E. H. Anderson to Governor E. Lee Trinkle, April 17, 1924.
Virginia. Governor (1922-1926 : Trinkle), Executive Papers, 1922-1926. Accession 21567b, State government records collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
Dr. W. A. Plecker began his harassment of all Indigenous Virginians with Chief George L. Nelson of the Rappahannock Indian Tribe. Using old birth and death records from the period of 1853 to 1896, Dr. Plecker wrote to Chief Nelson on March 24, 1925, strongly expressing that,
We do not find your name recorded in these old records but find others we take to be your brothers and sisters, all listed as colored.
You give your mother’s maiden name as Virginia Alis Fortune but we do not find her name nor her marriage to your father.3
Further in the letter, Dr. Plecker wrote that many of Chief Nelson’s ancestors had either mixed or “colored” ancestry, making his claims to be Native suspect in Plecker’s eyes. 4 In the final section of the letter, Plecker stated,
With the records of our office before us we cannot classify any of these who are recorded as colored and “Free Negroes” as Indians.5
From this one particular letter, modern readers gain insight into how Plecker and other state officials in the office of the Bureau of Vital Statistics used their authority to aid in the erasure of Indigenous Virginians.
Chief George L. Nelson was not a passive individual, and fought the Commonwealth of Virginia’s classifications. Chief Nelson reached out to Mr. M. K. Sniffen, Secretary of the Indian Rights Association, and Dr. Frank G. Speck, an anthropologist and professor, to seek advice on how to combat the actions of the Bureau of Vital Statistics. In a letter that Chief Nelson wrote to Mr. Sniffen on April 10, 1925, he clearly explained:
Letter- Plecker to Nelson - March 24, 1925
Walter Plecker to George L. Nelson, March 24, 1925.
Incoming Correspondence. Apr. 1925. MS The Indian Rights
Association, 1882-1986: Series 1, Correspondence, 1864–1989 Box
91, Folder 1. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Indigenous Peoples
of North America.
We who claim to be Rappahanock [sic] Indians is a group in citizentary [sic] who has lived separately as a group since 1856 and married our blood. He has attacked and say it no such tribe as Rappahanock Indians, and I find from 1856 to 1861 they listed us a[s] free negros to keep from listing us as Indians in order to wipe out the blood entirely….6
In this statement, Chief Nelson demonstrated that his people had isolated themselves as early as 1856, three years after Dr. Plecker alleges to have records deeming his family as “colored.”
Further in the letter, Chief Nelson communicated,
we have [a] charter and incorporated as the Rappahanock [sic] Indian [Association]…Now Mr. Sniffen we are in need of protection and help to not be forced to lose our standing as Indians in the State of Va. The Rappahonocks [sic] alone [have] spent nearly [two] thousand dollars in establishing their identity as Indians…7
Chief Nelson, in this letter to Mr. Sniffen, revealed that he, his family, and his tribe only wanted the Commonwealth of Virginia to recognize them as Rappahannock and to allow them to be recognized that way on documentation issued by the Commonwealth.
On October 27, 1925, Dr. Frank Speck replied to a similar letter from Chief Nelson stating that:
While you all know that I am ready to do all in my power to aid your cause, it is obvious that since I am not a Virginian, anything I might say would come as the word of a “foreigner” or “northerner” and he is as bad as any opposing force that the race agitators have to deal with. It is worse for us to meddle too much in your affairs for that hurts you.8
While Dr. Speck was willing to speak out on Chief Nelson and the tribe’s behalf, he worried that it would do more harm than good. Nevertheless, Speck offered,
My position is plainly and clearly expressed in my report on the Rappahannock Indians. I advise you most strongly to send for a dozen copies of these and hand them to your friends to inform them on the points which they will be called upon to answer.9
To close out this letter, Speck seems give vent to some of his anger:
It is not a case of justice, as everyone knows, but the work of a machine, a prejudiced, fanatical group of ignorant, stubborn people who close their eyes to things contradicting their opinions. And they are in power now. So wait and work until the pendulum swings the other way. 10
In order to justify his actions in applying the RIA towards the Rappahannock Tribe, Dr. Plecker wrote Governor Trinkle on May 16, 1925, expressing that,
You will observe that until recent years nothing was known of the Rappahannock who are now striving for tribal recognition. Professor Garnett Ryland, of the University of Richmond, and a number of other prominent citizens of Essex and King and Queen Counties have protested against these people being included as Indians…11
Using the knowledge of people not affiliated with the Rappahannock Tribe and stressing the information given to him by prominent white people, Plecker believed his actions were justifiable. However, in this same letter, Dr. Plecker does mention that he believed at least one tribe had the ability to self-identify as Indian. Plecker conveyed:
Our data, however, in reference to the Pamunkey Indians is not complete, owing to the fact that they have been exempt from taxation and were not visited by commissioners of the revenue. They, however, probably have more Indian blood than any of the others.12
Plecker to Gov Trinkle- May 16- 1925
Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker to Governor E. Lee Trinkle, May 16, 1925, Excerpt.
Virginia. Governor (1922-1926 : Trinkle), Executive Papers, 1922-1926, Box 76. Accession 21567b, State government records collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
Making this statement, Plecker contradicted the RIA and his own beliefs regarding Native people that could be identified as “Indian”.
Dr. Plecker’s campaign to eradicate Virginia’s Native people from written records continued throughout his entire career as the director and registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics. In 1943, Dr. Plecker wrote a circular to local officials and anyone else interested in the prevention of “racial intermixture.” In it, he explained that there were numerous cases of people claiming to be “Indian” via their marriage certificates, which were issued through the county and city government registrars and therefore by-passed larger state oversight. In order to reduce or stop these marriage certificates from being approved on a local level, Plecker compiled a document entitled “Surnames, By Counties and Cities, Of Mixed Negroid Virginia Families Striving to Pass as ‘Indian’ or White.” This listed all of the supposed surnames of people who were trying to pass as white or “Indian.” It is significant to note that many of the surnames found on this document can be connected to Virginia tribes recognized federally and by the state today.
Dr. Plecker remained as the Commonwealth of Virginia’s registrar until 1946. On May 16, 1946, The Richmond Times Dispatch ran an article entitled, “Dr. W. A. Plecker, 85, to Quit Virginia Vital Statistics Post.” The article acknowledged Dr. Plecker’s accomplishments and his plans for retirement. Journalist Lucile Wheeler informed her readers that Dr. Plecker “planned to continue his racial study of Indians and Negroes. For many years now Dr. Plecker has devoted much of his time to the study of the extinction of the Indian in Virginia through wars and their gradual intermingling with the Negro and white man.”13
It is interesting to note that the general public in Virginia in 1946 was informed that Plecker was studying the “disappearance” of Indigenous people in Virginia. However, the public did not know that he led a paper genocide removing the written record of Native people in Virginia.
One year after Dr. Plecker retired from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, The Richmond Times Dispatch announced his death on August 3, 1947. The article states:
Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker, 86, retired chief of Bureau of Vital Statistics of the State Health Department, died last night at Medical College of Virginia Hospital shortly after he was struck by an automobile as he crossed the street in the 4200 block Chamberlayne Ave.14
Although Dr. W.A. Plecker passed away in 1947, his policies and actions had long-lasting effects on Virginia’s Native people that continue to this day.
Editor’s Note: You can now view the online component of the Indigenous Perspectives exhibit at https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/indigenous-perspectives.
Header Image Citation
Header Image Citation
Newspaper Clipping; Date Unknown; George L. Nelson Papers, Box 1, Folder 11;
National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Original caption
Richmond, Va., Feb. 26. – Governor Trinkle of Virginia recently received members of the Rappahannock and Chickahominy Indian tribes, who appealed to him to support their bill now in the Legislature for an appropriation of $10,000 for an Indian High School to be called the Powhatan Academy.
The Indians object to attending high school with negroes, the visitors said, and are anxious to preserve their own traditions and historic sentiment through an education institution of their own.
In the group are Chief George L. Nelson and his squaw, (right if Governor) of the Rappahannock tribe ; Chief S. C. Weber, of Rappahannock ; J. D. Nelson, Rappahannock ; O. A. Stewart, Chickahominy and Miss Mosella Adkins, belle of the Chickahominy tribe.
Footnotes
[1] E. H. Anderson to Governor E. Lee Trinkle, 17 April 1924, Virginia. Governor (1922-1926 : Trinkle), Executive Papers, 1922-1926. Accession 21567b, State government records collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Incoming Correspondence, April 1925, box 91, folder 1, The Indian Rights Association Records, , Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in Indigenous Peoples of North America.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Incoming Correspondence, April 1925, box 92, folder 3, The Indian Rights Association Records, , Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in Indigenous Peoples of North America.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker to Governor Elbert Lee Trinkle, 16 May 1925, box 76, The Executive Papers of Governor Elbert Lee Trinkle, The Library of Virginia.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Richmond Times Dispatch, May 16, 1946.
[14] Richmond Times Dispatch, August 3, 1947.
