Blood Quantum

Historical Significance

Among Native people, blood quantum is an ingrained fact of everyday existence. As a construct, blood quantum is a construct that attempts to calculate the degree of racial inheritance for individuals. The concept embodies the assumption of racial purity and degree of racial mixture, carrying with it implications for social, economic, and political rights and statuses. Since its origin and institutional interjection into numerous federal policies concerning peoples of indigenous decent, it remains one of the most controversial and divisive issues afflicting contemporary Native North America. The origins of blood quantum are directly linked to the development of chattel slavery. By 1661, the institution of slavery was formally recognized by Virginia. Over the next 4 decades, other colonies formalized slavery as a legal economic and social institution. Paralleling the development of slavery was the evolving construction and separation of races on the basis of phenotype.

Using color along with other phenotypic characteristics to define racial and social inferiority was supported by a growing body of philosophical and scientific literature in that era that held that Africans, Native Americans, and mulattoes possessed inferior intellectual, moral, and social qualities that stood in direct opposition to “whiteness” and its inherent qualities. Race and racism became part of the North American political economic landscape.

Blood quantum came to be used to track racial ancestry and define legal rights. In 1705, the state of Virginia enacted a series of laws to deny civil liberties to any Negro, mulatto, or Indian. The law also applied to generations, defining children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as inferior members of society based on ancestry. Following Virginia's example, other colonies adopted similar laws, using blood quantum as a mechanism to determine status, privilege, and rights of a free person or slave.

The growing body of laws, although originally rooted in the institution of chattel slavery, evolved into a legal and social system that measured the extent of participation and privileges associated with full citizenship under the banner of “whiteness.” Once blood quantum became established as a mechanism for assessing inferiority, its use continued unabated into the 19th century.

Increasingly, the development and progress of U.S. society was guided by the belief in the nation's racial destiny. Dr. Samuel Morton's 1839 publication, Crania Americana, asserted that Native Americans had a “deficiency of higher mental powers” and an “inaptitude for civilization,” making it impossible for Natives and Europeans to interact. Thus, the building of an American civilization, including its future social and moral development, would be determined by its racial composition.

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