The headline actually referred to land ownership requirements, a legal milestone, but not one that directly applied to me. In actuality, the Chickasaw Nation does not use blood quantum to determine citizenship. I had a non-Indian girlfriend at the time, and it felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off my shoulders. So, when I discovered that blood quantum had been called off, it was incredibly liberating. No matter who I dated, maintaining Chickasaw citizenship was my primary worry. In fact, my family spread a rumor that we were the last in our bloodline who could keep our Chickasaw citizenship.īlood quantum became the dark cloud looming over every romance. Many tribes have a minimum blood quantum requirement for determining citizenship.īecause of this, my sister and I were told that we must have children with another Chickasaw, or else our children would lose their culture. This system is called blood quantum.įor example, if my mother was ¼ Indian, and my father was ½ Indian, then my blood quantum be ⅜ Indian: a little less than my mother. This is calculated by adding up all the “Indian blood” in a person and dividing by two for every generation. You see, for most tribal nations, one must possess a specific “purity” of “Indian blood” in order to obtain tribal citizenship. “Now, we can marry anyone we want!” Our children could be Chickasaw no matter what. Then, I sprang up and sprinted to my sister’s room, shouting the exciting news. “ Bill removes blood quantum requirement for citizens of Five Civilized Tribes.”Īs a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, one of those “five civilized tribes,” I sat in my chair completely still. It was chalking up to be an average afternoon of light reading, until I came across a headline that changed my life: Referring to someone as “part” Indian is based on a European idea of indigeneity meant to perpetuate genocide.” “Until 1934, blood quantum played no real role in determining tribal citizenship.
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