The Dark Side of Numbers: The Role of Population Data Systems in Human Rights Abuses

Social Research, Summer, 2001 by William Seltzer, Margo Anderson

Walker's rationale for including all Native Americans within the scope of the decennial population census (U.S. Census Office, 1872: xvi-xvii) began by his first distinguishing between the "constitutional" and the "true" population of the country. He then argued that the Constitutional phrase

   excluding Indians not taxed ... seems to have been adopted by the framers
   of the census law as a matter of course. Now the fact that the Constitution
   excludes from the basis of representation "Indians not taxed" affords no
   possible reason why, in a census which is on its face taken with equal
   reference to statistical as to political interests, such persons should be
   excluded from the population of the country.... An Indian not taxed should,
   to put it on the lowest possible ground, be reported in the census just as
   truly as the vagabond or pauper of the white or colored race. The fact that
   he sustains a vague political relation is no reason why he should not be
   recognized as a human being in a census which counts even the cattle and
   the horses of the country.

Walker's words clearly place Native Americans in the common family of humanity. It should be understood, however, that Walker's view of the humanity of Native Americans was within the context of an explicit racism that ran through most of his writings, whether on Native Americans or on the new immigrants to the United States. He characterized the early settlers' conquests of the American Indian in terms of beating "the savages with their own weapon, as men of the higher race will always do...." (Walker, 1873: 331). He also considered that what he termed "the Indian question" boiled down to two quite separate issues: "What shall be done with the Indian as an obstacle to the national progress? What shall be done with him when, and so far as, he ceases to oppose or obstruct the railways and the settlements?" (337). Walker's answer to the first question was to push the less aggressive tribes onto reservations, but using force when required. His answer to the second question was essentially a semipermanent system of apartheid based on one or two "grand reservations" west of the Mississippi (364-375).

With regard to special censuses and registrations, numerous treaties concluded between individual Indian nations and tribes and the United States between 1817 and 1868 provided for various population censuses to be carried out (Seltzer, 1999). These censuses ranged from one-time enumerations to annual administrative censuses. With few exceptions, the treaties provided for the censuses to be carried out by Indian agents working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or its predecessor organizations, with little or no involvement by Native Americans. After 1868, most enumerations were no longer treaty-based but carried out by military or civilian authorities solely on the basis of federal laws or administrative decisions.

The treaties specified or implied a wide range of uses for the data to be gathered: the equitable apportionment of land and per capita-based annuities and other benefits; the determination of the number of seats individual tribes and bands of Indians were to be allocated on Tribal Councils; and the provision of population data needed for routine planning purposes as well as to assist Indian removal and resettlement programs. Equally diverse were the concepts and classification variables specified in the treaties. In addition to age, sex, marital status, and household relationship, individual treaties provided for gathering data on such topics as: intentions to emigrate or apply for United States citizenship, competency to manage ones own affairs, and orphanhood, idiocy, insanity, and loyalty during the recently concluded Civil War.