It’s important to look at the Pamunkeys’ marriage ban through the lens of history. Virginia has a long history of racism towards Indian tribes, thanks largely to Walter Plecker, who ran the state’s Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912 to 1946 and insisted that Virginia’s Indians be declared “colored” on birth certificates. Plecker’s belief in eugenics inspired Adolf Hitler, and his refusal to recognize Indians as a distinct race helped to virtually wipe out Virginia tribes’ genealogical records—the very records required by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to prove a tribe’s history.

In his letter to the caucus, Brown blames that institutional racism of the state of Virginia for the tribe’s intermarriage ban.

“Racial intermixture was raised repeatedly as a rationale to divest us of our reservation and our Indian status,” he wrote, according to the AP story. He said the “antiquated and now repealed” intermarriage ban was meant to protect Indian identity. “It was never an attack on, or reflective of, ill will toward African–Americans,” Brown wrote.

The Pamunkeys aren’t the only Virginia tribe seeking federal recognition and the benefits that go along with it. Virginia has a number of state-recognized tribes, including Stafford’s own Patawomecks.

But the federal government shouldn’t punish today’s tribes for the discriminatory acts of the past, especially when a tribe was driven into that discrimination by the government’s own actions. If the Pamunkeys still had that law on their books, it would be one thing. But they don’t, and the tribe’s past response to a complicated issue shouldn’t bar them from achieving what many tribes in Virginia have long deserved—federal recognition.