Blood quantum laws
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States and the former Thirteen colonies that define Native American identity by percentages of ancestry. These laws were enacted by the American government as a way to establish legally defined racial population groups; by contrast, many tribes and nations do not include Blood Quantum (BQ) as part of their own enrollment criteria.
A person's blood quantum is defined as the fraction of their ancestors, out of their total ancestors, who are documented as full-blood Native Americans. For instance, a person who has one parent who is a full-blood Native American and one who has no Native ancestry has a blood quantum of 1/2. Nations that use blood quantum often do so in combination with other criteria. For instance, the Omaha Nation requires a blood quantum of 1/4 Native American and descent from a registered ancestor for enrollment, while the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has no BQ requirement, and only requires lineal descent from a documented Cherokee ancestor. Other Nations have a tiered system, with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma using lineal descent for general enrollment, but requiring a BQ of "at least one-fourth" of anyone who would run for tribal council.
See also
- Castizo, in colonial Hispano-America, a person of 3/4 White (usually Spanish) ancestry and 1/4 Native ancestry
- Dawes Act
- Dawes Rolls
- Impact of Native American gaming
- Indian Register - the list of First Nations Canadians who are eligible for treaty benefits
- Kamehameha Schools Admission Policy, Hawaii
- Lineage-bonded society
- Multiracial Americans
- Native American identity in the United States
- Native American reservation politics
- Native American self-determination
- One-drop rule
- Tribal disenrollment
- Tribal sovereignty
- Walter Plecker
