Blood quantum myth
KURUX
Jan 13, 2009 10:12 PM
This myth of indians "dilluting" ourselves out of existence is an unproven myth, mostly perpetuated by those thinblooded indians who wish to turn a profit from their native ancestry via tribal benefits, or the mystique/romanticsm that follows "native" ancestry: ie books, poetry, art.
There is no hard evidence that tribes are marrying ourselves out of existence, to the contrary, our number grow every year, and each year we have a record number of Native Americans in this country.
I am cherokee. we currently have approximately 30,000 citizens who have 1/4 bq and above. this is far more than in 1839 when there were approximately 8,000. This is in clear contrast to this myth of us going the way of the Do do. Also the Navajo Nation is prospering with over 300,000 members who are 1/4 and above!
I have nothing against those who are descendants and those who have grown up in our native communities. Anyone can live anyway they wish, and if thinbloods acculturate our lifeways, than more power to them and I wish them well. However, it is hard for me to seperate many thinbloods wails of being kept from our tribal rolls without discounting their desire to obtain tribal benefits.
As I said I am Cherokee. the freedmen issue is much more complicated, and they are in the right in their case. The Cherokee Chief is using illegal racial poltics to stay in office.
Dr. Albert Wahftig, in his dissertation investigated this theory of vanishing fullbloods. He concluded that in the case of the Cherokee, the thinblood Cherokee perpetuated this myth, in order to keep them in power and in control of the tribal government. If everyone thought that we were all thinbloods, then everyone would be okay with thinbloods running the tribe.
I do agree, and I think that tribe should adopt the laws in which ALL indian Blood is counted toward citizenship. I believe that this is fair, and I have seen this work well with many tribes.
Again, I dont see any hard evidence linking BQ to our detriment. It is unfortunate, but marriage is a choice. I dont see an twist marks on the arms of those who had children with those outside the tribe.
There is no hard evidence that tribes are marrying ourselves out of existence, to the contrary, our number grow every year, and each year we have a record number of Native Americans in this country.
I am cherokee. we currently have approximately 30,000 citizens who have 1/4 bq and above. this is far more than in 1839 when there were approximately 8,000. This is in clear contrast to this myth of us going the way of the Do do. Also the Navajo Nation is prospering with over 300,000 members who are 1/4 and above!
I have nothing against those who are descendants and those who have grown up in our native communities. Anyone can live anyway they wish, and if thinbloods acculturate our lifeways, than more power to them and I wish them well. However, it is hard for me to seperate many thinbloods wails of being kept from our tribal rolls without discounting their desire to obtain tribal benefits.
As I said I am Cherokee. the freedmen issue is much more complicated, and they are in the right in their case. The Cherokee Chief is using illegal racial poltics to stay in office.
Dr. Albert Wahftig, in his dissertation investigated this theory of vanishing fullbloods. He concluded that in the case of the Cherokee, the thinblood Cherokee perpetuated this myth, in order to keep them in power and in control of the tribal government. If everyone thought that we were all thinbloods, then everyone would be okay with thinbloods running the tribe.
I do agree, and I think that tribe should adopt the laws in which ALL indian Blood is counted toward citizenship. I believe that this is fair, and I have seen this work well with many tribes.
Again, I dont see any hard evidence linking BQ to our detriment. It is unfortunate, but marriage is a choice. I dont see an twist marks on the arms of those who had children with those outside the tribe.
Replies
I couldn't resist this set of questions:
"
Blood Quantum + Cultural Fluency = Tribal Citizenship
What if the tribes decided that more than blood quantum (and/or “blood ancestry” for those tribes enrolling by lineal descent) was necessary and desirable to attain tribal enrollment and tribal citizenship? What if the tribes, generally free to set their own enrollment criteria, required proficiency across a body of knowledge relevant to their culture as demonstrated before a group of tribal Elders as a condition (in addition to blood quantum) to tribal citizenship?
Kaohi,
It's truly amazing that you are stuck on Blood Quantum which is set up by the American system.....
Appears as if you're actually a disinformer, and on the trail of accommodating your masters....aka friends namely Abercrombie et. als.
Will not be entertaining your Blood Quantum track..........
instead, aren't you related to John Dominis...........one of the Auld's married him.........
Anywayz have to focus on some important stuff to be used in opposing your friends.
aloha.
The following information lists the blood requirements for eligibility for tribal membership. To be eligible for the Johnson-O'Malley program, a student must be eligible for tribal membership or be 1/4 blood degree descendant of a tribal member of a recognized tribe with written documentation.
The above tribes are for Oklahoma tribes only. If you have a question on out-of-state tribal requirements for eligibility, you should contact the tribal office in question.
Everyone,
Apparently some people can't see that they have been brainwashed and are totally indoctrinated in the American way of thinking and fail to understand that the "blood quantum" is an American implemented "law" and the purpose is to extinguish the true people's lands.
See the meaning of "blood quantum" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_quantum_laws :
Blood Quantum Laws or Indian Blood Laws is an umbrella term that describes legislation enacted in the United States to define membership in Native American tribes or nations. "Blood quantum" refers to describing the degree of ancestry for an individual of a specific racial or ethnic group, for instance, 1/4 Omaha tribe.
Its use started in 1705 when Virginia adopted laws which limited colonial civil rights of Native Americans and persons of half or more Native American ancestry.[2] The concept of blood quantum was not widely applied until the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The government used it to establish which individuals could be recognized as Native American and be eligible for financial and other benefits under treaties that were made, or sales of land.[3] Since that time, however, Native American nations have re-established their own rules for tribal membership, which vary among them. In the early 21st century these rules have been used to exclude people who had previously been considered members, such as in the case of the Cherokee Freedmen.
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[hide][edit] Origin of blood quantum law
The blood quantum law or "Indian Blood law" was passed by European Americans to regulate who would be classified as Native American and thus eligible to receive federal benefits. The first such law was passed in 1705 in Virginia, but at that time it was used to restrict the rights of people who were half or more Native American.[2] In the 19th and 20th centuries, the US government believed definition of tribal members was required, as it made treaties with the nations and paid tribal members benefits or annuities for land cessions.[4]
Many Native American tribes did not use blood quantum law until the government introduced the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Some tribes, such as the Navajo Nation, did not adopt the type constitution suggested in that law until the 1950s.[5] Critics contend that because the blood quantum laws required individuals to identify as belonging to only one tribe, despite their ancestry, some lost multiple tribal memberships, and overall numbers of registered members of many Native American tribes have been reduced.
"The U.S. census decennial enumerations indicate a Native American population growth for the United States that has been nearly continuous since 1900 (except for an influenza epidemic in 1918 that caused serious losses), to 1.42 million by 1980 and to over 1.9 million by 1990."[4] In the 2000 census, there were 2.5 million American Indians. Since 1960, people self-identify their ancestry on the US Census.[4]
For decades, tribes have established their own requirements for membership. In some cases, they have excluded members who had long been part of the tribe. An example of a tribal membership requirement is one based on documented lineal descent from a Native American member listed on the Dawes Rolls, or an early 20th century census. Unlike the provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act, many tribes allow members to claim ancestry in more than one tribe.[citation needed]
Tribes have established their own criteria for membership.[4] Given the new revenues which many tribes are realizing from gambling casinos and other economic development, or from settlement of 19th-century land claims, some have established more restrictive rules to limit membership.
Such actions have led to charges of racial injustice and controversies such as that of the Cherokee Nation's 2007 vote to exclude those Cherokee Freedmen with no ancestors on the Cherokee-by-blood Dawes rolls, although the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that they were legitimate members of the tribe in 2005. Similarly, in 2000, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma's attempted to exclude two bands of Seminole Freedmen from membership to avoid including them in settlement of land claims in Florida, where Seminole Freedmen had also owned land taken by the US government.[6][7]
Since 1942, the Seminole have at times tried to exclude Black Seminoles from the tribe. The freedmen were listed separately on the Dawes Rolls and suffered segregation in Oklahoma. More recently, the Seminole refused to share with them the revenues of 20th-century US government settlements of land claims. The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed an amicus brief, taking up the legal case of the Black Seminoles and criticizing some officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for collaborating in this discrimination by supporting tribal autonomy in lawsuits. By treaty after the American Civil War, the Seminole were required to provide Black Seminoles with all the rights of full-blood Indian members.[7]
[edit] Issues related to blood quantum laws
Many Native Americans have become used to the idea of "blood quantum".[2] The blood quantum laws have caused problems in Native American families whose members were inaccurately recorded as having differing full or partial descent from particular tribes.[2][5][8] In some cases, family members or entire families have been excluded from being enrolled as members of their tribe even when they have no non-Native American ancestors.[5]
At certain times, some state governments classified persons with African American and Native American admixture solely as African American, largely because of racial discrimination related to slavery history. This was prevalent in the South after Reconstruction, when white-dominated legislatures imposed legal segregation, which classified the entire population only as white or colored (Native Americans, some of whom were of mixed race, were included in the latter designation). It related to the racial caste system of slavery before the American Civil War. Until 1870 there was no separate classification on the census for Indian.
The Lumbee, a group which appeared to organize from a variety of peoples on the North Carolina frontier in the 19th century, achieved state recognition as Croatan Indian after Reconstruction.[9][10] This separate status allowed them to establish a school system for their children distinct from that for freedmen's children.[9]
The question of identity is complex. Award-winning researcher Paul Heinegg and Dr. Virginia DeMarce found that ancestors of 80 percent of free people of color (including individuals on the census later claimed as Lumbee ancestors) in the 1790 and 1810 censuses on the North Carolina frontier were descended from families of white women and African men, and were free in colonial Virginia because of the mother's status. Many mixed-race people in frontier areas identified as Indian, Portuguese or Arab to escape racial strictures.[11][12]
In 1952 the Croatan Indians voted to adopt the name of Lumbee (they were settled near the Lumber River, also called the Lumbee.) They achieved limited federal recognition in 1956 as an ethnic Indian nation by a special act of the US Congress, and accepted at the time that it was without benefits. Since then, they have tried to appeal to Congress for legislation to gain full federal recognition. Their effort has been opposed by several federally recognized tribes.[9][13]
In other cases, because mixed-race children were often raised in the mother's Native American culture, United States society considered them to be Native American, despite European ancestry, an example of the application of hypodescent rules. (As the trappers, traders and soldiers on the frontiers were mostly men, most European-Native American unions were between European men and Native women.)[9]
In 1924 Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, which required that every individual be classified as either white or black. (Some other states adopted similar laws.) In application, the law was enforced to the standard of the "one drop rule": individuals with any known African ancestry were classified as black. As a result, in the censuses of the 1930s and the 1940s, particularly in the South's segregated society, many people of African American and Native American descent who were either biracial or multiracial were largely classified as black.[10] The result negatively affected many individuals with mixed African American and Native American descent. Because there are few reservations in the South, such individuals needed to provide evidence of ancestry to be enrolled in a tribe. The changes in historic records erased their self-identification as Indian.[10] During the early years of slavery, some Native Americans and Africans intermarried because they were enslaved at the same time and shared a common experience of enslavement. Others made unions before slavery became institutionalized, as they worked together.[14]
Today, children adopted into Native families are unable to be federally recognized members unless they have a biological parent who is enrolled in a tribe.[2] Such cases of adoption are probably less frequent than in the past. Historically, especially recorded during the colonial years and the 19th century in the American West, many tribes adopted young captives taken in war or raids to replace members who had died. Whether European or of another Native American tribe, the captives generally were fully assimilated into the tribal culture and were considered full members of the tribe. Generally they remained with the tribe, marrying other members and rearing their children within the cultural tradition.
In some cases, census rolls for tribes such as the Cherokee were incomplete due to intermarriage, immigration, treaties, or because the members were not living within the boundaries of the nation, and thus would not be recorded on the census.[15] As noted above, however, many people self-identified on the US Census but are not eligible for tribal enrollment.
Some critics argue that blood quantum laws helped create racism among tribal members. The historian Tony Seybert contends that was why some members of the so-called Five Civilized tribes were slaveholders. The majority of slave owners were of mixed-European ancestry. Some believed they were of higher status than full blood Indians and people of African ancestry.[16][17] Other historians contend that Cherokee and other tribes held slaves because it was in their economic interest and part of the general southeastern culture. Cherokee and other tribes had also traditionally taken captives in warfare to use as slaves, although their institution differed from that which grew up in the southern colonies.
[edit] Issues with DNA ancestry testing
No federally recognized tribe enrolls members solely based on DNA testing. Many researchers have published articles that caution that genetic ancestry DNA testing has limitations and should not be depended on by individuals to answer all their questions about heritage.[18][19]
Popular culture has come to believe that many African Americans have Native American ancestry and some historians argue that most African Americans have Native American ancestry.[20] But, in the PBS series led by historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., called African American Lives, a few geneticists argued that African-Native American admixture is relatively rare.[21][21][22] In his associated book, Gates summarized the information:
[22]
However, Y-chromosome and mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) testing looks only at "direct" line male and female ancestors and thus can fail to pick up many ancestors' heritage.[24] Some critics thought the PBS series did not sufficiently explain the limitations of DNA testing for assessment of heritage.[19] More significantly, current DNA testing cannot distinguish among separate Native American tribes.[24] Furthermore, newer DNA tests can survey all the DNA that can be inherited from either parent of an individual, but at a cost of precision.[25] DNA tests that survey the full DNA strand focus on "single nucleotide polymorphisms" or SNPs but SNP might be found in Africans, Asians, and people from every other part of the world.[25] Full survey of DNA testing can not accurately determine an individual's full ancestry.[25]
[edit] Implementation
Many Native American tribes continue to employ blood quantum in current tribal laws to determine who is eligible for membership or citizenship in the tribe or Native American nation. These often require a minimum degree of blood relationship and often an ancestor listed in a specific tribal census from the late 19th century or early 20th century. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina, for example, require an ancestor listed in the 1924 Baker census and a minimum of 1/16 Cherokee blood inherited from their ancestor(s) on that roll. Meanwhile the Western Cherokee require applicants to descend from an ancestor in the 1906 Dawes roll (direct lineal ancestry), but the Cherokee Nation imposes no minimum blood quantum requirement. The United Keetoowah Band requires a minimum 1/4 blood quantum.
The Ute require a 5/8 blood quantum, the highest requirement of any U.S. tribe. The Miccosukee of Florida, the Mississippi Choctaw and the St. Croix Chippewa of Wisconsin all require one-half "tribal blood quantum", also a high percentage.
At the other end of the scale, the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma requires only 1/16 documented heritage. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon require a combined minimum of 1/16 from any of a list of several Oregon indigenous peoples.
Some tribes, such as Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town and the Wyandotte Nation,[26] require an unspecified amount of Indian ancestry (known as "lineal descendancy") documented by descent from a recognized member. Others require a specified degree of Indian ancestry but an unspecified share of ancestry from the ancestral tribe or tribes from which the modern tribal entity is derived, such as the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.[27] Many modern tribes are confederations of original tribal peoples joined into a single political entity.
Other tribes require a minimum blood degree only for tribal members born "off" (i.e. outside) the nominal reservation. This is a concept comparable to the legal principles of Jus soli and Jus sanguinis in the nationality laws of modern sovereign states.
[edit] Tribes requiring 1/2 degree blood quantum for membership
(equivalent to one parent)
http://www.hcn.org/issues/41.1/blood-quantum