Reservation and Nonreservation Indians
One important change for 1930 concerned people who did not live on the reservation. The understanding was that the agent was to include all his enrollees, whether there on the reservation or elsewhere, and no residents who were enrolled on another reservation. They should be recorded on another agent’s list.Circular 2653 (1930) says "A special survey of absentees is to be made at each jurisdiction and their addresses determined." The Commissioner goes on to say, "names of Indians whose whereabouts have been unknown for a considerable number of years are to be dropped from the rolls with the approval of the Department. The same pertains to bands of Indians of whom no census has been made for an extended time and who have no contact with the Service, viz., the Stockbridges and Munsees, the Rice Lake Chippewas and the Miamis and Peorias. These will be enumerated in the 1930 Federal census."
Cooperation with the federal officials who were conducting the 1930 decennial census was requested, but it is clear they were two different censuses taken in the same year, by two different government bureaus, with different instructions. However, some 1930 BIA censuses have penciled information that may correlate to the federal 1930 census data. For example, the 1930 census for Flandreau has handwritten numbers in the columns for county. The instructions shed no light on this. But, the since same number appears sometimes with several names having the same surname, it looks like it could be the family number from the federal census for that county, or perhaps a postal code or other correlating number. Although the agents were cooperating with the federal census takers, they were taking their own census. If the federal census takers figured the number of Indians counted on a reservation as a member of a tribe, they did not want to recount the same people living off reservation. Sometimes there might be notes done on the form to check off and make sure that people were not being counted twice.
The Commissioner directed the superintendents in Circular 2676 that the "census must show only Indians at your jurisdiction living on June 30, 1930. Names of Indians removed from the rolls since the last census, because of death or otherwise, must be entirely omitted." A later amendment altered this to state, “The census must show only Indians enrolled at your jurisdiction living on April 1, 1930. This will include Indians enrolled at your jurisdiction and actually living on the reservation, and Indians enrolled at your jurisdiction and living elsewhere.” He was still hammering on this theme in Circular 2897, when he said, “Dead Indians reported on Census Roll as was done by some agencies last year will not be tolerated.” He also took care to define the meaning of the Superintendent's area of jurisdiction to include “Government rancherias and public domain allotments as well as reservations.”
The agents were urged to be careful to remove names of those deceased, and to include names of those who were still “under their jurisdiction” but perhaps on a rancheria or public domain allotment. The implication is that the information for previous years could be erroneous. Also it is clear that the jurisdiction did include some people living on allotments in the public domain, whose lands were no longer considered as a part of a reservation. However, spouses of Indians who were themselves not Indian, are not listed. Charles Eastman’s wife, a non Indian, does not appear on the Flandreau census along with her husband.
By 1930 many Indians had gone through the allotment process and received patents for their lands, now considered as part of the public domain, as opposed to lands reserved for a reservation. Agents were told to consider Indians living on allotted lands on the public domain as part of their jurisdiction. Some censuses made that distinction, reservation and nonreservation Indians. For example, the Grande Ronde - Siletz present day membership criteria mentions the “public domain” rolls of 1940 prepared by the Grand Ronde-Siletz Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs.
A revised census form was used in 1931, prompting the Commissioner to give further instructions in Circular 2739. The 1931 census had the following columns: 1) Number 2)Name: Surname 3)Given Name 4)Sex: M or F 5) Age at Last Birthday 6)Tribe 7)Degree of Blood 8)Marital Status 9) Relationship to Head of Family 10)At Jurisdiction where Enrolled, Yes or No 11) At Another Jurisdiction, [its]Name 12) Elsewhere, Post Office 13) County 14) State 15) Ward, Yes or No 16) Allotment, Annuity, and Identification Numbers
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