So there was (and currently ongoing) the whole, genocide, thing that wiped out a huge chunk tribes.
The reservation system sequestered a significant chunk of those that survived.
Early US census takers didn’t care so much about the genealogy of the people who they were collecting demographic information on and if a person looked white passing they’d be recorded as white. So you’d have a mixed race couple with several kids and a census taker totally had the option to mark any of the kids as “white” if they were passing enough.
The whole American Indian Boarding schools, where children of Turtle Islanders were kidnapped and/or send by their parents who were convinced to send them for an education, whose whole purpose was to … well… abuse them until they either died or abandoned all of their Native heritage to become USA’ians.
Blood Quantum. There was a time where the USA federal government was pushing really hard to not recognize anybody as a “Native American” if they didn’t have more than a certain percent of “Native American blood.” Effectively trying to say that a person stopped being a member of a tribe if they were too far removed. Some of the bigger tribes went along with this, some still do, I’m pretty sure most have abandoned this as just being … well… a continuation of genocidal policies.
Being racist as fuck against any members of a tribe, people from reservations, or people who might “look” like they could be of Native American heritage. With the reservation system often being a pretty shitty place to live, being able to pass as hispanic or mexican or any other nationality to get a job/education or maybe a different kind of racism, a person could just stop claiming they were part of any particular tribe on a census or make no effort to get their names on any tribes member rolls.
And like, if you’ve got some Potawatomi in your family tree from a great great grandparent but nobody tells you, and you look white as white can be, you’re gonna answer the “What Race Are You?” question in a very ‘white’ wink way.
Also, if you DID know you had some link to a tribe(s) its not like “Potawatomi but white passing” is an option on the USA census questionnaire.
Doesnt sound a hundred miles from what i know of the treatment of Australian Aborigines. Its so wrong, and yet so covered up.
Its a horribly effective strategy.
Oh shit… I forgot to mention something in my OP
Tribes that did manage to survive and were given “land” somewhere in the USA were expected to pay property taxes on that land.
So a displaced people, who had lost everything, were expected to immediately set up profitable businesses to pay that bill. When they couldn’t pay the taxes they’d either had the land confiscated and were evicted from the land or they’d sell the land and become displaced again.
Correction on blood quantum: the vast majority of tribes still rely on blood quantum for enrollment. The requirement can range anywhere from 1/32 to 1/2. Blood quantum is still in use because it’s often a necessity to receive federal recognition that opens up the tribe to certain forms of economic support. Most tribes that use blood quantum also require proof of lineal descent. There is a movement to do away with blood quantum in favor of lineal descent as more of us wake up to it’s genocidal purpose. But this is a slow battle as we still have to get this knowledge into the minds of our comrades and then past our tribe governments, councils, etc. which tend to be stacked with corrupt liberals.
