Mixed Blood

Greetings Relatives,

Today I am going to tell you some things that many Indians either refuse to admit or don’t acknowledge are actually happening. The war of genocide against our Native American Indian ancestors, which started with the early colonization of this Turtle Island, is still going on today. It never ended – it merely took on a different face. The United States is still determined to “assimilate” all Indians into the mainstream culture until there are no more Indians. It seems the “solution to the Indian problem” is to define them out of existence.

One of the most insidious methods the USA ever devised to define Indians out of existence is the CDIB (Certified Degree of Indian Blood) card. That’s right – to “prove” that I am an Indian I must carry a CDIB card. It identifies the cardholder’s Indian nation and percentage, or quantum (percentage) of Indian blood. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) keeps very careful records of all of this. Once the percentage drops past a certain pre-defined level (normally 25%), the person is no longer legally classified as an Indian.

Historically, Indians of one nation have traditionally married Indians of a different nation to ensure their children were not born deformed. Thus, Abenaki married Iroquois, Lakota married Crow, Kumeyaay married Hopi, and so forth. Now, according to the BIA the children of such marriages are no longer “pure-blood Indians”. The child of such a marriage would have to choose which nation they want to be affiliated with (normally the mother’s) and their CDIB card would indicate they were 50% Indian (of the mother’s nation).

But it gets worse. If an Indian were to marry a non-Indian, again the blood quantum goes down. If two such “mixed bloods” marry each other, their children would have a significantly reduced percentage of Indian blood. Since Indians have been forced to intermarry to survive, mixed blood Indians are more common than most Indians realize or are willing to admit. Thus, the blood quantum requirements cause their children to lose their heritage. Further, if some of your ancestors aren't in the records, you can be denied being an Indian. Nobody makes African-Americans prove their entire family line and apply for some governmental Certificate of Degree of African Blood before they can get a scholarship from the NAACP or put "Black-owned" on their business if they want to.

But the most disturbing consequence of blood quantum requirements for Indians is that it guarantees the extinction of the American Indian. By this standard, white is the default, and everyone is approaching whiteness. Someone who is 1/8 Indian is considered white, and that is the end of their Indianness-- they are white and their children will be white, forever. On the other hand, if an individual is 1/8 white, but that doesn't mean that's the end of whiteness in their line. It keeps sitting there, just as it has since the 19th century when my white ancestors entered my family. Eventually one of my descendants will marry a white person again and hah! We will be 1/4 white. A person can get more white, but not more Indian. Do you see what I mean? Every generation, there are fewer people this system thinks are full-bloods, and all the blood quantum gets smaller.

In fact I don’t believe there are ANY pure-blood Indians left alive anywhere. I have met numerous Indians who claim to be FBI (Full-Blooded Indian), but since I do genealogy, I have investigated many such claims – and I can ALWAYS find some other race in their ancestry. At that point it just becomes a matter of degree – how mixed are they?

The real question is: Should any of this actually matter? How should we define who is and who isn’t an Indian?

That question, and others, will be discussed in my next blog.

Till then, walk in peace,
Steve

Copyright © 1995-2008 Stephen L. Miller