Blood Quantum in Our Tribe is a Relic of Slavery and Colonization

Before colonization and assimilation, our Mvskoke (Muscogee) and Seminole people did not have ‘blood quantum’ as part of our way of life. We accepted all people into our tribes, as long as they accepted our values. Escaped slaves in Florida joined the Seminoles because, like us, they were tribal people who had similar Indigenous values. We also accepted many white people who left their cities and towns because they felt so much better living with people who treated each person with basic respect and equality. We did not have oppressive State systems with their police, jails and prisons. We had our system of direct democracy with decisions made by all tribal members, through consensus, not the representative democracy, winner take all system of the colonizers. We allowed all to speak and to choose leaders, unlike the colonizers, who only allowed white men with property (including slaves) to vote, in their representative ‘democracy’. Blood quantum was clearly a colonizer practice, as it created racism as a means to keep the ‘races’ divided and oppressed.

For example, the ‘one drop’ rule for Blacks was blood quantum to the extreme. Our tribal systems were colonized by the U.S. government and the Dawes Commission imposed the blood quantum system on us, which eventually would leave most tribal people’s descendants who were children of mixed ‘blood’ of other ‘races’ and even other tribes to lose citizenship when their blood quantum was less that 1/4th. As an Indigenous (not ‘Indian’) member of the Mvskoke…