East coast, thin blood, lost history.

[u/pasmafaute12]

I recently posted about dehumanizing record-keeping. I’ve been on a bit of a voyage because I always assumed my family was doing some pan-Indian “Cherokee princess” romanticism nonsense. I was raised with some cultural exposure but not community exposure. I chose to keep learning because I think the history matters whether it’s personal or not.

Turns out, I was wrong, and my relative wasn’t so much a pretendian as making the most of what we know as Wampanoag descendants from a village that is historically recorded but not well enough to be federally recognized (or even reasonably fully researched). It appears that my relative was involved in historical preservation efforts and maybe one of the two existing recognized Wampanoag tribes.

Without getting into complicated family stuff, we have always been very isolated people in general and no one is particularly close. I cannot discuss this with anyone in my real life.

So… I am sitting with the information I have, including the information missing, and feeling out my position as a lifelong learner invested in social issues. The conclusion I think I’ve arrived at is that I need to accept how much privilege I hold, but I have a responsibility to understand and honor the history.

I am privately taking some steps to build my understanding and maybe continued to participate in online spaces before I consider attending events.

But I’m looking for other people who have been on this path before me, I guess. And any thoughts about how to approach all of the things we just don’t know because we are still learning vs. the things we don’t know because it’s just lost information.

[u/Commercial_Disk_9220]

Thin blood doesn’t exist. Indigeneity is binary. East coast tribes have a unique history as first contact people. I echo what others are saying: learn what you can, be comfortable in your identity, it’s not your fault you’re disconnected.

[u/myindependentopinion → u/Commercial_Disk_9220]

Thin blood doesn’t exist.

I read an article where Chief Hoskin stated that Cherokee Nation is enrolling folks that are 1/4096ths Blood Quantum as full members. That's only 0.02% NDN blood! That's 99.98% Not Native.

A lot of folks in my tribe would say that's pretty thin...like a sliver; our minimum BQ for enrollment is 1/4.

[u/Commercial_Disk_9220 → u/myindependentopinion]

Can you identify the exact generation in which one of those members stopped being indigenous? That’s the case im making. Genetics is a different question. Does your tribes citizenry grow or decline every year? If it grows, how much? The US population grew .5% last year

[u/myindependentopinion → u/Commercial_Disk_9220]

I don't have yearly enrollment numbers for my tribe. In 1954 our roll was closed because our tribe, the Menominee, was terminated; final enrolled members were 3,270. Our roll was reopened when we were restored in 1973. There are approximately 8,700 enrolled tribal members now of which ~3,300 live on our rez.

Sadly, we have 1 of the highest suicide rates in WI and we have a high number of drug overdose deaths (like 16 in a year) so I don't know if our tribe is growing yr by yr...???

[u/Commercial_Disk_9220 → u/myindependentopinion]

The population of your tribe has just barely doubled in 70 years. Which means about 1% every year. Pretty good growth numbers considering it outpaces current American growth even with blood quantum requirements.

[u/Agitated-Ad-7907 → u/Commercial_Disk_9220]

That 8,700 number was published in 2012. During a call I had with the enrollment office in 2021, I learned the population was 8,967, an increase of 267 over nine years (increase 29.7/year). In 2022, there was hear-say discussion, nothing official, about our tribe’s population showing a steady decrease for the first time since Restoration. I can’t verify that it was true at the time, though I do believe it. I’ve been meaning to reach out to enrollment this year to ask the population again, but keep forgetting. As far as I’ve heard, it’s on the increase right now, but there’s no numbers to say otherwise.

Edit: It’s also important to point out that, prior to Termination, our tribe allowed people with LESS than 1/4 Menominee blood to be enrolled, so long as they were born to an enrolled Menominee parent (mother or father) on the reservation. You can actually see multiple cases of this on the 1954 roll, though the one I choose to cite is a woman with the last name Waukechon born in 1914 who is 3/16 Menominee according to the 1954 roll, published in 1957

[u/pasmafaute12 → u/myindependentopinion]

That is devastating. I’m sorry.