that picture you found with like the assimilation ceremony.

Yeah, so this is, you know, this kind of goes back to allotment policy.

There, there was a, it's kind of a little bit tangential, but I think it's also important.

It's it plays into this whole idea of like civilization and approximation to what a lot of

these Indian agents saw as whiteness and they would say this in their reports.

So parents, you know, you know, during allotment a family or a head of household was allotted about 160 acres of landing depending on where and then surplus land was sold was sold off

Off into whites. I think there was like 90 million acres that was that was essentially like considered quote-unquote surplus land that was

sold off and one of these and they would have these competency commissions that would go around

for a lot these people who are allotted their land to work as farmers

basically or to develop the land and to such a degree that they could live off of it sustainably.

And it's like most families who are allotted land or most individuals who are allotted land

often never went to that land because it was just it was literally just scribbled on a piece of paper and then you know like much like our Indian money accounts I can't I can't go to the government be like I want to cash out my individual Indian money account, write me a check.

You know, they probably be like, we don't know where it's at, where's the money?

And behind the scenes, there's like an Oz figure,

just like printing out $100 Benjamin's, you know, anyways, because it's all fake but but these competency

commissions were set up to like prove that through agriculture through working the land, through you know managing cattle or whatever it was that somebody was doing with their land that these indigenous people most often were considered quote-unquote full-bloods those who

Couldn't speak English very well or didn't speak English at all and often were considered like almost

unassimilable or unable to assimilate, they were considered ineligible for citizenship or ineligible to own land in private.

And that's important to note that most, even today,

competency commissions, you know,

our competency tests still exist.

It never went away.

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