location of a portion of the Patawomeck community in the late 1600s. (13) During the United States Civil War, vandalism, courthouse fires, and other disasters destroy many of the records within the Stafford and King George County courthouses, serving to reduce the archival footprint of the Patawomecks within their historic areas of habitation. (14) In the late 1910s and 1920s, the anthropologist Frank Speck, visited the Patawomeck community to take photographs, conduct interviews, and collect objects related to Indigenous heritage, noting that the northern divisions of the [Powhatan] Confederacy are represented by descendants on Potomac Creek in King George county … . Since this time, partnerships have existed between the Tribe and researchers from institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Pennsylvania, the College of William and Mary, American University, the University of Mary Washington, and Santa Clara University. (15) In 1924, Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act which removed the category of Indian identity from official records. Instead, all people were required to be identified as White or colored. This law, in addition to other aspects of the racialized society that existed in Virginia starting in the late 1600s, effectively erased Virginia Indians from the official records of the Commonwealth until the middle of the 1900s, amounting to a paper genocide. (16) In the 1930s and 1940s, at least 722 Patawomeck ancestors were taken from their graves under the guise of archaeological research. Many of these ancestors were discarded by the excavators. The remainder, numbering well over 200 individuals, are currently held by the Smithsonian Institution. (17) In 1954, Elizabeth Newton of the Patawomecks married O.T. Custalow, Chief of the Mattaponis. (18) In 1996, the contemporary and formal reorganization of the Patawomeck Tribe took place with the adoption of a written constitution. (19) In 2006, in partnership with linguists the Patawomecks began to work on reconstructing their