In 1917, California's Supreme Court upheld the Eastern Pomo man Ethan Anderson's right to vote. The court recognized that Anderson lived and worked like his white neighbors and, most importantly, did not live in “tribal relations” and was subject to local jurisdiction. But Anderson, his lawyers, the opposing counsel, and the court never denied that he was a member of an Indian community. In fact, local authorities and the federal government had long acknowledged that Indian communities existed in Lake County, and they had both legitimized small Indian community landholdings as the homes of self-sufficient Indian laborers. Now, as Indian citizenship seemed to signal to local and federal authorities more claims on the state, both denied responsibility for those communities. Although citizenship seemed to stand as the categorical opposite of “Indians, not taxed,” Anderson's vindicated voting rights was not an end point of a successful program of assimilation, but one aspect of Indians’ ongoing pursuit of community security through their engagements with local and federal authorities.