Blood Politics : Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

Circe Sturm takes a bold and original approach to one of the most highly charged and important issues in the United States today: race and national identity. Focusing on the Oklahoma Cherokee, she examines how Cherokee identity is socially and politically constructed, and how that process is embedded in ideas of blood, color, and race. Not quite a century ago, blood degree varied among Cherokee citizens from full blood to 1/256, but today the range is far greater—from full blood to 1/2048. This trend raises questions about the symbolic significance of blood and the degree to which blood connections can stretch and still carry a sense of legitimacy. It also raises questions about how much racial blending can occur before Cherokees cease to be identified as a distinct people and what danger is posed to Cherokee sovereignty if the federal government continues to identify Cherokees and other Native Americans on a racial basis. Combining contemporary ethnography and ethnohistory, Sturm's sophisticated and insightful analysis probes the intersection of race and national identity, the process of nation formation, and the dangers in linking racial and national identities. Focusing on the Oklahoma Cherokee, the author examines how Cherokee identity is socially and politically constructed, and how that process is embedded in ideas of blood, colour, and race. Not quite a century ago, blood degree varied among Cherokee citizens from full blood to 1/256, but today the range is far greater - from full blood to 1/2048. This trend raises questions about the symbolic significance of blood and the degree to which blood connections can stretch and still carry a sense of legitimacy. It also raises questions about how much racial blending can occur before Cherokees cease to be identified as a distinct people and what danger is posed to Cherokee sovereignty if the federal government continues to identify Cherokees and other Native Americans on a racial basis. Combining contemporary ethnography and ethnohistory, Sturm's sophisticated and insightful analysis probes the intersection of race and national identity, the process of nation formation, and the dangers in linking racial and national identities. Illustrations......Page 12 Acknowledgments......Page 14 Note to the Reader......Page 18 1. Opening......Page 20 2. Blood, Culture, and Race: Cherokee Politics and Identity in the Eighteenth Century......Page 46 3. Race as Nation, Race as Blood Quantum: The Racial Politics of Cherokee Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century......Page 71 4. Law of Blood, Politics of Nation: The Political Foundations of Racial Rule in the Cherokee Nation, 1907–2000......Page 101 5. Social Classification and Racial Contestation: Local Non-National Interpretations of Cherokee Identity......Page 127 6. Blood and Marriage: The Interplay of Kinship, Race, and Power in Traditional Cherokee Communities......Page 161 7. Challenging the Color Line: The Trials and Tribulations of the Cherokee Freedmen......Page 187 8. Closing......Page 220 Notes......Page 232 Bibliography......Page 250 Index......Page 264 In a back room outside a bar stand two men estranged by chance from one another, a grandfather and his grandson, tentatively speaking their first words. Circe Sturm. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 231-244) And Index.