Rattlebone... Some of the sources i refer to are on the Pequot website and I agree it's good to be careful of information coming from people with a vested interest.
However the census records for 1860 are almost certainly from the census taken in 1860 and the 1880 census on the LDS website showing a surviving Pequot Native community could not possibly have been falsified by the Pequots. That you would even suggest the records i pointed out might be irrelevent and tampered with by the Pequots seems dishonest.
As there is proof this tribe existed in 1880, I see no reason to doubt it also existed in 1910 as is stated in various sources- even if I haven't found an online version of the 1910 census that proves this.
Your agruement that this tribe didn't exist by 1970 because they couldn't all survive on the small land base remaining to them is unrealistic. Even if they weren't all managing to live on the small reservation land left to them , presumably many of the people living in the community in 1910 were still alive in 1970, and there would have been quite a few people who maintained close ties to this community they grew up in, who were living and working elsewhere .
If there was no tribe which can be proven to have maintained it's existence , as the Pequots can be proven to have done , after a couple generations of no tribe, generally speaking people would not be culturally Native and would be PODIAs.
Seems simple to me.
However the census records for 1860 are almost certainly from the census taken in 1860 and the 1880 census on the LDS website showing a surviving Pequot Native community could not possibly have been falsified by the Pequots
I am talking about the Mashanatucket Pequot of Conn. Though your mention of this 1860 census might be a valid one, what happened after that goes against everything you have stated in this group yourself.
Most of the 20th Century there land was occupied primarily by one person by the name of Eliza George Plouffe, and she was the only person that really acknowledged being from those people or knew much about them. Sure she had pushed off some of the "black looking" relatives, or her mother had, but bottom line she was the last one to know anything cultural about that tribe.
She died in 1973, and later on one of her daughters moved on the rez. Later on Skip Hayward who was Eliza's nephew would start up the process of getting them recognized, but prior to that he had never cared and really never knew a thing about his people. All of this is known as well. Skip Hayward himself is probably like 1/8 if even that. His BQ does not matter other then to show he was not only distant in relations but not really knowledgeable of his "culture" and had most likely never cared before.
As for the 1860's census....the descendants of those people did not live in any sort of community, and were spread out. Them being enrolled in that tribe is not unlike some PODIA as you call them finding a relative on the Dawes roll and becoming Cherokee.
That you would even suggest the records i pointed out might be irrelevent and tampered with by the Pequots seems dishonest.
I never said anything about them being tampered with. I did say they seemed to come from the Peqouts themselves, and of course they are not going to put things down in such a way as to make themselves look bad in any way now are they? Especially when in 2000 the BIA was questioning if they were even really who they claim to be.
One of the links you posted up was to the Mohegans, and im not even sure if that is the Mashanatucket people, but rather a different group.
As there is proof this tribe existed in 1880, I see no reason to doubt it also existed in 1910 as is stated in various sources- even if I haven't found an online version of the 1910 census that proves this.
If you are using 1880 as a reference then wouldn't that justify some PODIA with proof finding some other relatives and getting a tribe that had not functioned as one since the 1880's recognized. If you do some research on the Plouffe family you will see that is what happened.
Your agruement that this tribe didn't exist by 1970 because they couldn't all survive on the small land base remaining to them is unrealistic.
I said no such thing, and don't even believe that to be true myself. I said that Eliza was the sole person living on that land, and that nobody cared about any of it until after her death. I think those who did were motivated by money if you ask me. I have talked to a few younger ones a few years ago who were young adults, and they had pride in being Peqout; however I think that is something starting to grow now possibly and was not the case when the tribe was seeking recognition.
Even if they weren't all managing to live on the small reservation land left to them , presumably many of the people living in the community in 1910 were still alive in 1970, and there would have been quite a few people who maintained close ties to this community they grew up in, who were living and working elsewhere .
As I already pointed out I was not making any case based on land or it's size..ever. I was pointing out that this community did not exist in the 20th century, and that those people did not have any close ties with each other as you think they did. This was due to hatred of each other based on the fact that some had married into black families and there was racial hatred because of it. It exists to this very day.
If there was no tribe which can be proven to have maintained it's existence , as the Pequots can be proven to have done , after a couple generations of no tribe, generally speaking people would not be culturally Native and would be PODIAs.
This is and was my point in my original question to you.
The tribe had ceased to exist since the late 1800's and nothing culturally about it had been maintained. One of the things they did in the 1970's and early 80's was to have "council meetings" to make it seem as if they had a tribal government. Maybe they had at that time, but it was not in continual exist that most tribes need to prove for recognition, and was only being done to make it look as if they did.
So as you say they would have been PODIA's, because that is exactly what they are in cultural terms. Sure they had enough genealogy information to prove they are related to the Peqouts, but they got recognized by political wrangling that got them recognized as a tribe. Most people on the East coast trying to jump through the hurdles needed to gain recognition would never gain it had they been in these exact same circumstances because BIA rules in regards to recognition could have never been met. They gained theirs through Congress and not through the recognition process.
