The Navajo Nation requires a minimum of 25 percent "Navajo blood," and Turtle Mountain requires a minimum of 25 percent of any Indian blood, as long as its in combination with some Turtle Mountain. Specifically, Freedmen, the descendants of Black slaves of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogees (Creeks), and Seminole tribes, have faced significant exclusion. Tribal affiliation certainly wasnt one. Blood Quantum is a strategy used by the government and tribes to authenticate the amount of Native blood a person has by tracing individual and group ancestry. Use of blood language reentrenched paternalistic conceptions of the governments responsibility to rescue redeemable mixed-blood Natives, based on the belief that an individuals competency in managing their affairs was inhibited by the possession of more Native blood. Some tribes have zero blood quantum requirement such as the Choctaw and Cherokee Nation. However, the Dawes Rolls commissioners only enrolled a small fraction of Native Americans. But a great example for how to understand this problem in real life is that there is a history of freedmen who are black individuals who were living as fully incorporated members of Indian tribes. Webblood. Home. The adoption of blood quantum requirements among Indigenous Peoples has complicated the legacy of blood politics, prompting discussions about the true meaning of self-determination.
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Others see disregard for blood quantum as a way to build up a nations numbers for the sake of survival. Today, about 70% of the federally recognized Native nations that share geography with the United States use blood quantum as a metric for citizenship. This is because if they let too many people enroll, they risk losing federal recognition and tribal property. Can you get COVID and the flu at the same time? ), Blood quantum is not an Indigenous concept. Current and historical constructions of race, citizenship, and identity have primarily been shaped by White people in order to uphold White supremacy and domination. Fletcher, Indigenous Law and Policy Center, Rose Cuison Villazor, co-editor, "Loving v. Virginia in a Post-Racial World", Carla D. Pratt, law professor, Penn State University, Tiya Miles, historian, University of Michigan, Joanne Barker, associate professor, American Indian studies. (Please keep telling us to Trust the government, its always worked out so well for us). TOP 9 why blood quantum is problematic BEST and NEWEST You are wondering about the question why blood quantum is problematic but currently there is no answer, so let Blood Quantum was used by the former apartheid govt in SouthAfrica and the Nazi regime. But also the fact of the matter is most east coast tribes are very obviously black natives and the racism in native spaces is real asf. Both restrictive rules could be understood as their ongoing quest to overcome the effects of their colonization and dispossession of their sovereignty and lands. Any unallotted surplus land was sold to non-Native buyers. Ultimately their decision has to be respected in order to uphold tribal sovereignty. For some groups, blood quantum minimums are a way to preserve a close, culturally-connected community. We don't have per capitas though. In 1912, Congress conditioned funding and membership for some tribes on blood quantum, limiting its obligations to only those tribes and individuals it deemed to have enough Indigenous blood. The federal government used blood quantum to deny some mixed-race Native Americans land during this time by requiring at least one-quarter Native blood to receive allotments. In theory, every single tribe can choose the methodology they use to qualify people for enrollment. If a prospective citizens blood quantum is lower than 14, they are not eligible to become a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. Should it be? The government saw blood quantum as a way to strip. Many Native nations, including the Navajo Nation and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, still use it as part of their citizenship requirements. However, many tribes no longer follow these laws. Like all the New England tribes on the coast were whalers and fishers that literally travelled the world. However, when it came to questions of citizenship, the courts were quick to categorize mixed Native Americans as Indian. Others are eliminating blood quantum requirements entirely and using lineal descent (or sometimes, more specifically, patrilineal or matrilineal descent) to define membership. Using blood quantum allowed the government to turn independent nations into racialized groups, which thus enabled the government to subordinate them. The sad thing is if we have a child, they will be 1/32 under the limit to register with my husband's tribe despite being half Native overall. Here is the most important takeaway for non-Native folks about blood quantum: Native nations are sovereign, independent nations. On these rolls, the Dawes Commission assumed three racial categories: freedmen, intermarried Whites, and Indians by blood. Ones racial classification dictated the size and location of their allotment: Full-blood Natives received small parcels of land while mixed-blood Natives received larger, better tracts of land. They say that I will never amount to anything because Im even whiter, and how stupid my mother and grandfather were for marrying worthless whites. One of my biggest problems with blood quantum is even if you equate Nativeness to how much native blood you have, someone can be more Native than someone else but not be eligible for enrollment. Whether by requiring a higher blood quantum for federal recognition and benefits, denying Indigenous people U.S. citizenship, or influencing tribes to adopt their own blood quantum requirements, White people have been the gatekeepers of Native American identity. The BIA must also approve of tribes methods for determining enrollment. It is almost as if this erasure was premeditated by the government. Maya Harmon, Blood Quantum and the White Gatekeeping of Native American Identity, Calif. L. Rev. Its a big issue especially for tribes that have many bands, like Ojibwe. They make fun of her and my uncle because they do not understand enough Spanish or Comanche. Blood quantum, as a way to define native identity, was first seen during the allotment period between 1887 and 1934. Blood Quantum policies are little other than genocidal and will eventually lead to the extinction of indigenous people. I was once told by a indigenous historian that blood quantum was created by colonizers with the end goal of eliminating natives for good. But like I said, its not a reality, Fletcher said. And one of the ways that history could be eradicated, sadly, by design, is through blood quantum.. Who gets to tell the story, and what story do they get to tell? Im a huge fan of Russell Means. It's an extremely progressive and interesting move, and they're really changing the game. Surplus reservation land was then open to homesteaders and corporations for purchase, creating patchwork quilt-like reservations with both American Indian and non-American Indian landholdings. Certainly, American Indians have been racialized. How did people know that those original enrollees had "full blood quantum"? I try my best to avoid these discussions. Such unresolved questions continue to plague tribes today and underscore the importance of sustained community dialogue as a starting point to acknowledge the complexities of tribal identity. Some natives are out-of-touch with their own identity or dont feel native enough to identify as such. Through dialogue, communities better acknowledge the roles lived experience, cultural connection, pre-colonial forms of knowledge production, and blood-based classifications all play in shaping indigeneity. The importance of community dialogue in the development of Cherokee citizenship requirements was articulated by S. Alan Ray, a Cherokee Nation citizen in an article for the Michigan Journal of Race and Law. Blood quantum was initially a system that the federal government placed onto tribes in an effort to limit their citizenship. Blood Quantum Land Laws and the Race Versus Political Identity Dilemma. Native tribes also generally accepted mixed-race individuals into Native societies with few hesitations. For example, if they didnt believe someones blood quantum to be correct, theyd make a guess based on that persons physical appearance. In some tribes, people could gain tribal citizenship if they were born in, married or were adopted into, or had long-term residence within the tribal community, or if they assumed cultural norms such as religion and language. Its very important that Native nations consider their power as sovereign nations and their ability to write their own laws and to self-govern., Gabe Galanda sums it up well: Anyone who cares about this country, loves this country, and respects and honors the history of this countrywhether thats an ugly history, a beautiful history, or a combination of bothshould want the Indigenous peoples of these lands to exist in perpetuity. None? So the way that blood quantum is calculated is by using tribal documents, and usually it's a tribal official or a government official that calculates it. The fuck. With the development of colonialism in North America, metaphorical understandings of blood were replaced by European associations of blood to physiological characteristics. And so, for example, these officials would mark someone potentially as "full blood" when potentially that person was not. She hopes to spread awareness on the inequities indigenous people face and help create an easy way to enlighten people on the topics through The Indigenous Foundation! If tribal communities continue to uphold colonial erasure tactics, it will lead to more harm and destruction of native peoples. Just like blood quantum. L
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Does any other ethnicity have to enroll to be a member of their own ethnicity? Fucking none. The programs that most nations run have a host of requirementsthey might be living within a certain boundary or having a certain income or age requirement, for example., Continued use of blood quantum requirements has major implications for Tribal sovereignty. For example, the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe requires members to have 14 or more blood quantum from Lower Brule. Rose Cuison Villazor is an associate professor at Hofstra University Law School and the author of "Blood Quantum Land Laws and the Race Versus Political Identity Dilemma," published in the California Law Review. If you're Native American, this controversial term about your blood can affect your identity, your relationships and whether or not you can become a citizen of your tribe. However, the courts were quick to categorize mixed Native Americans are,! Their citizenship Identity, Calif. L. 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