Off to the Big City

Greetings Relatives,

O.K., so there aren’t any Full-Blooded Indians left because of the BIA’s blood quantum requirements. In fact Indians are in reality mixed-blood Métis (some may not know they are Métis and some are not willing to admit it).

If you have never been to an Indian reservation, you may not know that they are some of the poorest people on earth. When the US government was deciding what lands to assign to the Indians, they selected the most desolate, worthless land possible. They can’t grow crops, or raise cattle. Even the nearby towns are impoverished, with poor educational facilities or anything else for that matter. Crime is rampant, as are drugs, gangs, and alcohol. Indian reservations have been compared to federal penitentiaries for good reasons.

So what’s a poor Indian to do? They are moving away from the reservations by the droves. So there are fewer and fewer Indians living on the reservation all the time. This creates additional problems due to a swallowing of the gene pool. The restrictions against intermarriage within the family unit provide further incentive to move away from the reservation. This provides even less of an opportunity for Indians to meet other Indians for marriage purposes; so again, there are intermarriages which produces even more mixed-blood Indians. According to the BIA, these children are not considered to be Indians if their blood quantum falls below some arbitrary pre-determined level.

This is a Catch-22 style trap with no way out. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. If an Indian decides to stay on the reservation, their children’s blood quantum drops and if they move to the city their children’s blood quantum drops. About the only reservations with any hope of survival are the ones that have Indian Gaming. Indian Gaming is a trap which I will talk about in a future blog.

‘Till next time.

Walk in Peace,
Steve

Copyright © 1995-2008 Stephen L. Miller