Blood quantum is anti-Indigenous. It was invented by the government to guarantee our gradual extinction. Tribes that weren’t wiped out lost 90-98% of their populations due to genocide & they knew it would be impossible to maintain indefinitely. #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth

‘Native American’ is actually a political status that involves the rights & Treaty obligations due us by the government because we come from sovereign nations that predate the US. Traditionally, Tribal membership was based on kinship & relatedness by blood, marriage or adoption.

Tribal membership in pre-colonial times was about connectedness.

After the government realized they couldn’t kill us all, they switched to assimilation policy. Cultural genocide. They used priests & nuns to steal our children & take them to boarding schools to christianize them & turn them into a servant labor class. Some never came home.

During the assimilation era, the government forbade the speaking of our ancient languages & outlawed Native spirituality. It did not become legal for Natives to follow ancestral instructions through ceremonial rites in this country until 1978.

Tribes began following blood quantum for membership because the government tied blood quantum to treaties & after assimilation, some kinship & cultural ties were severed. The government also relocated some Natives away from their homelands to cities to break their ties.

Tribes are still working to repair the ongoing damage done by colonization. We grow stronger every day. We are thankful to our ancestors who fought & died to ensure our survival & kept our languages, cultures, ceremonies & land ties intact at all costs.

No one is one half or one quarter of a person, and so forth. Tribes are also multiracial. We are more than race.