108 W. A. PLECKER 



"shall" during the passage of the bill. The responsibility was assumed by 

 the State Registrar, since it was in accord with work which had already been 

 undertaken by him of properly registering births, deaths, and marriages as 

 to race, as required by the Model Vital Statistics Act of 1912, not only of the 

 Virginia Registrar but likewise, if so desired, without further legal enactment 

 by all state registrars working under the Model Law. 



Without realizing just what would happen, the privilege was extended 

 to the people of the State to register by race births which occurred before 

 June 14, 1912, the date when the Model Law became effective, a small fee of 

 twenty-five cents being required to cover the clerical cost. A few white 

 people registered, but no true negroes or dark skinned mixed breeds. With 

 the near-white mixed breeds, this was just the opportunity that they longed 

 for, and in an incredibly short time their applications for white registration 

 began to come in. 



The group of "Mongrel Virginians," studied and described by Estabrook 

 and McDougle in their book by that title, in connection with the Carnegie 

 Foundation, were greatly aroused and had a local registrar visit and register 

 them until his supply of cards was exhausted. When these cards reached 

 our office, the trick was at once detected, and all of the fees were returned 

 and the white registration for which they applied refused. The cards, 

 however, giving their parentage were carefully preserved, with regret that 

 the local registrar did not have many more of them. 



Our chief difficulty in tracing the pedigree of this group, composed of 

 perhaps one thousand or more in several counties, is their twenty-one per 

 cent of illegitimacy, as the above-mentioned authors found, They are 

 locally known as "Free Issue," from the fact that they are the descendants 

 of freed slaves colonized in one county in the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge 

 Mountains. Estabrook and McDougle accepted their claim that there had 

 been also an admixture of Indian in the group. This gives them the oppor- 

 tunity of proclaiming themselves "Indians," ignoring the negro racial 

 foundation. Now they are maintaining that this "Indian" blood has been 

 so reduced by white illegitimate crossing that they can pass as white. 

 In filling their pedigree forms, they always either claim that their illegitimate 

 fathers were white men or disclaim knowledge as to their identity. Fortu- 

 nately, however, our Bureau is in possession of fairly complete birth and 

 death records, secured by tax assessors during the period from 1853 to 1896. 

 That was before there was any concerted endeavor to pass as white, and 

 the officers, knowing perfectly their racial standing, registered them as 

 colored. Estabrook checked his work by these records and found them to 

 agree with his conclusions. We have also marriage records from 1853 to 



