This episode was made possible by a grant from the Virginia Museum of History and Culture’s Commonwealth History Fund presented by Dominion Energy.
And by a grant from Virginia Humanities.
CALEB DODD: My name is Caleb Dodd and I'm a member of the Patawomeck Tribe.
This guitar, my grandmother ordered it in, I reckon, about 1965 out of the Spiegel catalog for a Christmas present for my grandpa before he left to go to Vietnam.
He was an Army Corps of Engineers. He took the guitar with him.
And then he came back and he put it in the case, and set it behind a wardrobe in the bedroom for about 30 years, didn't touch it.
And I reckon I was in about seventh grade and he got it out and it was in good condition. And he put strings on it, shined the top up with Lemon Pledge furniture polish. And he said, "I don't know how to tune it. You'll have to look it up online to figure out how to tune it."
He didn’t remember and I looked it up, put it in tune. And he said, “I remember one chord that was a G chord and showed me that.”
He served for 14 months and nine days. He always told everybody that. That was exactly how long he served. And then he came back and he said all they had in their rations was powdered milk.
And the plane that took him out of Saigon landed in Honolulu, Hawaii at an Air Force base. And they had a mess hall there. And he said he went in and he ate about three gallons of strawberry ice cream and washed it down with a gallon of milk because he was so happy to have it again.
POWHATAN OWEN: Native Americans have the highest rates of military service in proportion to every other ethnic group in the United States.
In Virginia, Tribes have a deep history of military service that goes back to the Revolutionary War.
But during World War II, in Virginia, Native American men were not allowed to enter the service as Native peoples.
FORMER CHIEF JERRY STEWART: William Stewart was my dad, and I think it was like 1943 when he was drafted. And the State of Virginia only recognized two races. You were either White or Black.
POWHATAN OWEN: Jerry Stewart is former chief of the Chickahominy Eastern Division.
FORMER CHIEF JERRY STEWART: He went there to report for duty and when he got there, it was all Black. It was just him as an Indian, and he said that, “Ah, I think you've made a mistake.”
But Dad, you'd have to know dad. He took the paperwork and told them what they could do with it, you use a little bit of imagination, and he left.
POWHATAN OWEN: But the story doesn’t end there.
FORMER CHIEF JERRY STEWART: I thought things were exaggerated. Dad told me the story that he wanted to go talk about the situation. And the head of the draft board then was Rountree.
POWHATAN OWEN: Henning Ainsley Rountree, Sr. of Hampton, Virginia.
FORMER CHIEF JERRY STEWART: And grandma said he came to the house, got a shotgun, and two pockets full of shells. And he said, "I'm going overseas to kill people that have never done anything to me. I might as well take care of business before I leave." But he went there, and Rountree had enough sense not to come to the door.
And it's kind of ironic. His granddaughter is Helen Rountree.
POWHATAN OWEN: Helen Rountree is professor emerita of Anthropology from Old Dominion University.
FORMER CHIEF JERRY STEWART: And really an expert on Virginia Indians, and was a vital part in us getting our federal recognition. I feel that she really helped us.
I talked to Dr. Rountree. I said, "You know, Dad's probably exaggerating."
She said, "No. Your daddy was known all through Hampton."
She said it got so bad that, I think her grandfather owned a shop, they closed it. She said they were hiding. They were in fear. Said, “The man's crazy.”
POWHATAN OWEN: Finally, a compromise was reached. He agreed not to shoot anyone and the board agreed to classify him as ‘nationality unknown.’
William Stewart was my friend. I knew him as Billy Stewart. He served in Germany with White troops, and told me his experience about liberating a concentration camp. And after two years he came home as a sergeant.
FORMER CHIEF JERRY STEWART: I don't know why he didn't go to jail.
But I found out from her, she said, "No, it was not an exaggeration. Your dad was hunting for people, Rountree, Plecker. He didn’t tell you the half of it.”
She said, “They were scared.”
POWHATAN OWEN: Long before World War II, Virginia had laws designed to erase Indigenous cultures and communities. So, when the draft began, local draft boards refused to register members of Tribes as Indian.
But Tribes fought back, some taking their cases to court.
Some won. Others lost. And some went to jail.
I’m Powhatan Red Cloud Owen, a citizen of the Chickahominy Tribe and a Vietnam Veteran. This is Tribal Truths.
Part Two: Institutional racism in the Army
POWHATAN OWEN: By the time the draft began in 1940, the official records of most tribal members in Virginia had been changed from Indian to negro or colored. This was done by the state’s Bureau of Vital Statistics. That’s the place where you would go to register your marriage, a new baby or a death in the family.
LUE ADKINS: I remember when my children were born, I sent in the birth certificate, and then I decided I was going up to the registrar’s office in Richmond to see what was on it. And they had changed it.
POWHATAN OWEN: That’s Lue Adkins, a World War II veteran. He’s from my Tribe, the Chickahominy. He also was my brother-in-law. Lue was interviewed in 2002 by the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond.
LUE ADKINS: And they had Negro on my childrens’ name. I just took it and scratched it out, put the Indian back on it. That Dr. Plecker was something else.
POWHATAN OWEN: Walter Plecker was not only a medical doctor, he was a White Supremacist and eugenicist. He was determined to wipe out Indian identity in the state by altering the records he was charged with protecting.
It was still the Jim Crow era. But lawmakers gave Plecker extra tools in his effort to create a Black and White state. The most important was the 1924 Racial Integrity Act. It criminalized interracial marriage and made it possible to jail people who tried to identify as Indian.
So, when Lue Adkins reported for duty in 1942, the state had already made the identity of Indian nonexistent in Virginia.
Again, from the 2002 interview with Lue:
INTERVIEWER: When you went in the army, do people know that you were Indian?
LUE ADKINS: Yeah, they knew it, but they didn't want to acknowledge it.
We get a little more respect now, but we're still working on it. I think things will come along.
POWHATAN OWEN: Another member of my Tribe, Opechancanough Adkins was also interviewed by the Virginia War Memorial. Like Lue, he was about 18 when he was drafted.
OPECHANCANOUGH ADKINS: I didn’t like it. I didn't have a country to fight for. Because they took that back in 1607, 1609, something like that.
So, you know, the only thing I had in mind that I live here, and protect the home, not my country, protect the home.
The bad part of it is that at that time, when you got called in, you got called either White troops or Black troops.
We got called, me and several other guys got called up on the Black troops. Well, I didn't like that, anyway.
That was your Selected Service Board down here in Charles City County that did that because they didn't want to recognize us as American Indians. Because down there, if you weren’t White, or if you were a race of color, then you're Black. They only had two races, you know.
And I didn't like that.
POWHATAN OWEN: I need to pause here to emphasize the reason our men didn’t want to be put in with the Black troops. It was because they were well aware of racism in the Army, and how unfairly Black troops were being treated compared to the White troops. We’ll talk about that more later.
So, Opechancanough along with six others from our Tribe were to serve with Black troops. Our chief went to Richmond and tried to have them switched to a White unit. Instead, they got deferred for a month. Then, they were told to report with the Black troops.
OPECHANCANOUGH ADKINS: Anyway, we went to Fort Meade, Maryland. And then from there, we went to Alabama just outside of Gadsden.
One afternoon this lieutenant, second lieutenant, called and said to me, he said, "Adkins, I noticed you all were supposed to report a certain such time, but you already didn't report to but a month later."
He said, "What's that?"
And I said, "Hold it. I said, ‘Seven of us here.’”
POWHATAN OWEN: Opechancanough wanted to explain why he and the others had been deferred and how Virginia had taken away their true identity. So, he asked the lieutenant to meet with him and the six other tribal members.
OPECHANCANOUGH ADKINS: There were me, two brothers, James and Lucian. Three other guys that was, was Tazewell Adkins, Isaac Adkins, Wilmo Adkins, and Edward Holmes, we called him Gus.
And I said, "What we want to do is get all the seven of us together.”
We had a little meeting.
Then this lieutenant was the CO at the time, Lieutenant Tannetti.
He said, "That's not right."
POWHATAN OWEN: The Lieutenant told them he would try to help them.
Then one evening they got a call.
OPECHANCANOUGH ADKINS: They told us to put on a class A uniform, we’re going for a ride.
I said, "Oh, oh. We gonna be locked up now."
We went out to the hospital there where the headquarters was. I don't remember. I think it was a full-fledged colonel.
He said, "Boys, you're not treated right."
POWHATAN OWEN: The colonel told them, “I’m Native American.”
OPECHANCANOUGH ADKINS: And he said, "I can see features of an American Indian in you folks."
He said, "I’ll do what I can."
So we went back.
Soon after that, maybe a couple weeks or so, we got another call. They told us, "All the Indian boys come and go to the barracks, put on class A uniform, take everything that you got. We’re going for a ride.”
POWHATAN OWEN: But this time they were shipped out to Hawaii for basic training with Black troops and they never heard back.
OPECHANCANOUGH ADKINS: I'm wrong. I know I'm wrong. But in my heart sometimes, every one of those that was on Selective Service boards, they sent us in a Black call, I wish to die in hell, I'd tell you the truth. Because they know better.
But I'm trying to get in my heart because I'm a Christian, born again Christian, and try to get in my heart, my mind and heart to release that thought and forgive them.
Because our God will take care of them too, you know, for mistreating people.
POWHATAN OWEN: When the U.S. declared war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Native Americans across the country enlisted in overwhelming numbers.
Between 5 to 10 percent of the entire Indigenous population of an estimated 44,000 saw active duty.
The 1940 Draft Act specifically stated there should be no discrimination against any person on account of race of color.
But as we heard from Opechancanough, once the local draft board said you were Black, the Army had its own policy that segregated under the guise of separate but equal.
PAUL MURRAY: A man stands in front of you who has a fairly light complexion. He may have dark hair. He may be somewhat darker complected than the average White person. But he says, no, I'm not Negro. I'm Indian. And, the military authorities don't have expertise to determine what your lineage is simply by making a cursory physical inspection of a person.
POWHATAN OWEN: Paul Murray is a retired sociology professor from Sienna College in New York. He’s written extensively about institutional racism in the military draft.
PAUL MURRAY: There was a great deal of discrimination within the Armed Forces at that time. And the Black troops were regarded by military officials as being inferior. They were often assigned to work details, units that were not being prepared for combat.
POWHATAN OWEN: Paul said Black troops became truck drivers, stevedores, and similar jobs for the military. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American military pilots in the United States.
PAUL MURRAY: And that required a prolonged political battle. Very few of the Black units saw combat. They really, really had to fight, and most oftentimes were unsuccessful, in achieving equitable assignments.
POWHATAN OWEN: Native Americans were well aware the same thing would happen to them as they reported their local draft boards.
PAUL MURRAY: Local draft boards were individuals selected from each community who were thought to be representative of the community. Very, very few occasions did they include people of minority racial groups. And these were the people who made the decision and this was based on what their prevailing sentiment in their local community was.
POWHATAN OWEN: At the beginning of the draft in 1940, some boards left racial classification of Indians blank. Others, like King William County, requested guidance from the Selective Service. King William was where the Pamunkey and Mattaponi Tribes lived on reservations. The Upper Mattaponi, a non-reservation Tribe, also lived on lands in the county.
King William reached out to the Virginia Director of the U.S. Selective Service, Colonel Mills Neal. Born in Richmond, Virginia, he had a distinguished military career.
The question being asked would dog him for the next five years:
Should the board let the White community determine a man’s race or should they use the registrant’s self-identification?
Col. Neal was told by his superiors to follow the Draft Act of 1940. It said local draft boards should determine how to classify inductees.
So, classification of an Indigenous draftee was left to local boards in a state that was in the process of erasing them. This is how many local draft boards were able to force Indigenous men like Billy Stewart, and Lue and Opechancanough Adkins to be inducted as Black. And Virginia law used what was called blood quantum to define an Indian who had Black ancestry.
PAUL MURRAY: The legal standard at that time was one drop of Black blood made a
person Negro. Now, that may have been many, many generations back. A person may physically appear to be Indian or White, but if people in the community still regarded them as being of mixed race, then they were drafted as being Negro.
POWHATAN OWEN: Indigenous men in Virginia would face not only Jim Crow discriminations, but possibly lose their Indian identity for the rest of their lives.
At first, tribal leaders wrote letters of protest to Governor James Price.
In early 1941, J.L. Adams, chief of the Upper Mattaponi Tribe reminded the Governor of how Indigenous draftees were placed during World War I:
“The other times our boys registered they registered as Indian and went with the white… We don’t mind our boys going if they can be sent right and not with the colored.”
Colonel Neal and Gov. Price also received letters from the White community in support of their Indigenous neighbors. Some emphasized the sovereignty of Tribes, who had their own schools and churches.
PAUL MURRAY: And they tried as much as they could to avoid contact outside their own particular small communities. Of course, when the war came on, the military reached into every nook and corner of the United States with the draft, and they could not avoid confronting the issue of just exactly where did they belong in the racial scheme that was recognized by the federal government.
POWHATAN OWEN: In rural Amherst County, prominent White people wrote letters in defense of the Monacan Tribe. Here’s Sue Elliott, a Monacan citizen in charge of her Tribe’s museum and archives.
SUE ELLIOTT: There was a lady professor from Sweet Briar College, Bertha Wells, who actually wrote to them and said, “Look these people have been living in these mountains for over 100 years. They do not associate with Blacks or Whites. They go to an Indian school and they go to an Indian church. And if you want to get technical, the teachers at the Indian school are White, the preachers at the church are White so where are you getting that they are Negro from? And of course they had to say, “Well, where they got from the vital statistic records because he had all of them said colored on it.”
POWHATAN OWEN: The back and forth between what the community said and what Walter Plecker said, didn’t help the draft boards or the Selective Service.
SUE ELLIOTT: And then they reached out even further and they said, “Okay, we're going to check with the people you work with.” Well, people that they work with they said, “Well, yeah they're their Indian and mixed with something.” You know, and that's how they did it. So then okay, now here we are again, the Indian mix was to go into the Negro services because they were not 100% White.
And then, unfortunately, the Director of Selective Services, he actually reached out to, of all people, Walter Plecker.
POWHATAN OWEN: Colonel Neal was trying to clarify the state law classifying Indians as Black. We don’t have a copy of his letter to Plecker but Paul Murray has a copy of Plecker’s response.
What caught our attention is the insult of Plecker responding to Col. Neal as “Mister.” Here’s an excerpt:
PLECKER LETTER: “We fail to find that there is a native born Indian in the State who is unmixed with Negro blood… We classify all native people in Virginia claiming to be Indian as negro... Even if any could show themselves to be Indian under the Census, they would still be grouped with the colored group and would not be classified as White.
Yours Very Truly, W. A. Plecker, M.D. State Registrar.”
POWHATAN OWEN: As protests increased, the hot potato of race determination continued to be tossed back and forth between the local draft boards, Col. Neal and his superiors.
The most cases were in Virginia, but the Selective Service was hearing from Indigenous men in Maine, Delaware and North Carolina, among other states.
In January 1942, Col. Neal issued a memo for how local draft boards should classify men who register as Indians. He directed them to induct members of the Indian Race as White trainees. But some 170 Native American registrants remained at the mercy of the Virginia draft boards to recognize them. Boards were told men could appeal their decisions, but as we’ll find out later, this was not always followed.
During the summer of 1942, Pamunkey tribal members who enlisted were being put in with Black troops. So, their Chief Walter Bradby and five tribal leaders sent an emotional letter to then-Governor Colgate Darden.
BRADBY LETTER: “Sir, with distress and alarm we have heard that the War Department of the United States may be called on to classify the Indians of Virginia as negroes
...If any of us should...give his life for his country, can we point with pride that he is one of our Pamunkey Tribe of Indians … Are we to be blotted out? Is our pride and happiness to be made a casualty of this war? Rather we, that the Government – in its power – kill us one by one.”
POHATAN OWEN: Eventually, men from the Pamunkey and Mattaponi Tribes were allowed to serve with White troops. And, though the Upper Mattaponi Tribe didn’t have reservation status, their draft board also put them in with White troops.
Some men from Tribes in other parts of the state without reservation status turned to the courts to challenge the Selective Service System.
Aside from Billy Stewart’s gun-toting threats, this took the fight to an entirely different level.
Part Three: The Battle for Indigeneity begins: 1942-43
POWHATAN OWEN: In December 1942, three members of the Rappahannock Tribe were arrested for refusing to report for induction when local draft officials classified them as Black. Here’s Rappahannock Chief Anne Richardson.
CHIEF ANNE RICHARDSON: We didn’t have our reservation because we had been moved off of our reservation, so we didn't have reservation status. Our men were willing to go and fight, but when they went to register they had to either register as White or colored.
They said they would go, but they had to be recognized for who they were. They just wouldn't go as something other than what they were. And so it started a federal court case.
POWHATAN OWEN: At their trial in January 1943, Oliver Wendell Fortune, Robert Purcell Byrd and Edward Arnall Nelson told the court they were Indians from the Rappahannock Tribe.
They brought their chief and elders to testify. One newspaper described what they said as, quote, “a dramatic oration of the Tribe’s history and the spark of Indian heritage, which had been handed down for over 300 years.”
An agent for the draft board testified. Remember earlier when Col. Neal instructed draft boards to allow an appeal by Indigenous men who took issue with their race classification? Well, the agent told the judge, draft boards were instructed to classify them as White or Negro, which was true. But he added, this could not be appealed to the board.
So, the judge ruled in favor of the board, which classified the men as Black and found them guilty of evading the draft. He sentenced each of them to two years in prison.
When they appealed, they were given a less harsh sentence.
CHIEF ANNE RICHARDSON: There was so much momentum in the court case on behalf of the Tribe that the judge, influenced by Walter Plecker and people like him who was afraid that that case was going to overturn the Racial Integrity Act, that they rendered them conscientious objectors and they sent them away to a hospital in Massachusetts to do work release.
POWHATAN OWEN: Over in the western part of the state in Amherst County, members of the Monacan Tribe were heading into a legal battle against their draft board.
Here’s Sue Elliott, again, to tell that story.
SUE ELLIOTT: Seven of our men were drafted into the military and they were very proud and very excited about signing up. They wanted to be part of the military and they assumed - and you know what they say about assumed - they assumed that they would do the same as they did in World War I and would be automatically put into the White barracks.
That was not the case. Instead the local people here in the Selective Service board here in Lynchburg, actually had to say okay this one is White and this one is you’re Indian. So, that automatically makes you a Negro, was the term they used. And our men said, “no, no, no.” Well it was a little late at that point because they'd already registered and what happened there is they refused to go.
POWHATAN OWEN: And that’s considered being AWOL, absent without leave, a punishable offense that included going to jail.
SUE ELLIOTT: The local paper here, it's really funny story that’s put out that seven of the Indian men were draft dodgers and were hiding out in the mountains up here and that they were armed and dangerous. And, so, everybody was looking for these men that were supposedly armed and dangerous that were trying to get out of going into the military.
They were here in the mountains some of them. I'm not gonna lie about that. But they weren't armed because to them there was no reason to be armed. They just said, “No, no, no. We're not gonna do it. We're not gonna report to the Black services.”
POWHATAN OWEN: The men may not have understood the consequences of being AWOL. But from their refusal to be anything but Indian, arose a very important court case.
SUE ELLIOTT: The local police department and of course the Army was out looking for these draft dodgers. So, one of the draftees, his father decided, “Well, we're gonna go to court. I'm not gonna allow them to put you in a Black barrack. And so, that was the beginning of the court case.
The gentleman's name was William Branham, William Branham Jr. was the son and he was 19. And he says, “I am going to petition the court that you do not have to go into the Black barracks.”
POWHATAN OWEN: The case was Branham versus Burton. Clarence G. Burton, the chairman of the Amherst Draft Board, was named as a defendant along with other members of the board.
The court documents show the draft board registered William as William Brown, likely not hearing his surname correctly.
SUE ELLIOTT: Now, the young man was saying his father was Indian his mother was White. So, he automatically said okay I need to go into the White barracks but they said no.
POWHATAN OWEN: In William Branham Jr.’s case, the draft board based their decision on just one man’s opinion. A former employer, who told the board William was negro.
By the time the court heard William’s case, Clarence Burton had resigned from the board. And, the board changed their decision. Sending in William’s paperwork with no race classification at all.
Once again the decision of William’s identity was put back to the federal Selective Service System.
This also meant Willliam’s case was falling apart.
The final blow. Judge Alfred D. Barksdale ruled he had no jurisdiction in the case and dismissed it.
William appealed, but by that time Judge Barksdale had been moved to the appeals court where he once again dismissed William’s case, saying the court had no jurisdiction.
And the fate of William Branham, Jr. and the other six Monacan men...
SUE ELLIOTT: They were all sent to Fort Meade in Maryland, not in Virginia. They went to Maryland for their training and went into the White barracks and stayed there and did well there in the military.
POWHATAN OWEN: William Branham, Jr.’s case remains important along with cases in other states of men pushing back on a racist system. In the end, the cases in North Carolina proved most vital. The state director of Selective Service there cited ten cases where Indigenous men had been tried and acquitted for refusing to be drafted as Black.
SUE ELLIOTT: And the District Court says well, okay, the Selective Services does not have the right or the power to say what race you are. That is a decision that you, whatever you say you are, that's what you are.
POWHATAN OWEN: Still, it wasn’t until 1944, the War Department officially instructed local draft boards to show the race of the registrant as claimed by him.
Four years later, President Truman issued an executive order “that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”
PAUL MURRAY: Because of the young men who decided that they were not going to comply with the processing that the military had determined, that helped in a small way to break down some of the institutionalized barriers.
POWHATAN OWEN: In 1953, the Selective Service compiled a two-volume report on racism in the draft system during WWII. One memo cited Col. Neal’s efforts against discrimination in the Army and said “there is a definite premium on being a member of any other race than the Negro race.”
Jim Crow laws and the Racial Integrity Act forced many of our men and their families to leave Virginia to live and to find work in states that welcomed Native people, including mine. They could also enlist as Indian in those states.
Upper Mattaponi Chief Emeritus Kenneth Adams served in the Vietnam War as did some of his brothers. It was his grandfather, Chief J.L. Adams, who wrote one of the first letters of protest to the governor, as we talked about earlier.
He also had relatives who served in World War II.
KENNETH ADAMS: One was Jasper Adams, who's my uncle.
Jasper Adams was in Normandy on D-Day. He went on to serve for another year and a half until the war was over. He suffered severely from PTSD.
In order to serve in the military as a Native American, he had to go to Pennsylvania and enlist in the military. They either enlist with Black folks in Virginia are leave the state and go into the military. And that's what they did. That's what they did.
And it wasn't anything that was, they were saying against the Black folks, they were
saying, "Basically, why don't you enlist us as who we are?"
That's all they were asking. That's all they were asking.
There wasn't anything about any other race against any other race or not. It was just, “enlist us as who we are, just like you do other people.”
POWHATAN OWEN: Ken’s cousin, Kenneth Tupponce, also served. He died in the Philippines in 1944.
KENNETH ADAMS: That's where I got my name, Kenneth from. He died in 1944. I was born in '47. I was named after him.
POWHATAN OWEN: Some men returned to Virginia. And, while their service is recognized by the states where they enlisted, they are not recognized in Virginia. But that may change with efforts underway at the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond.
Indigenous people have the highest per-capita involvement of any population to serve in the U.S. military and the highest number of women who have served. Since 9/11, nearly 19 percent of Native Americans have served in the Armed Forces, compared to an average of 14 percent of all other ethnicities.
People often ask why we serve.
KENNETH ADAMS: Occasionally I'll think about why so many Indigenous people serve in the military. My brothers were proud to serve in the military, as was I. We’re proud to serve.
POWHATAN OWEN: I really want to stick my chest out and say, ”here I am. Here I am. I'm a Native veteran.” And it's not too many of us. And we have to tell that story we have to tell about how we progressed, you know, as a people that was trying to be snuffed out, you know, especially here in Virginia.
Credits
CREDITS
Soldier Boy was written by Kenny Scabby Robe and performed by the Black Lodge Singers of the Blackfeet Nation.
Special thanks to the Library of Virginia, The Virginia War Memorial, the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the National Archives, and Professor Emeritus Paul Murray, who wrote the original article upon which this episode was based.
Tribal Truths is reported, written and sound designed by Pamela D’Angelo. Kelley Libby is editor. Additional editing by David Seidel, and Powhatan Owen.
Support is provided by Virginia Humanities and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture’s Commonwealth History Fund presented by Dominion Energy. Additional support is by WVTF Radio-IQ.
Additional music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.
