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I couldn’t find this posted anywhere, so I placed it here. It was a curious and interesting read. I don’t know the author, but I have witnessed some of the separations he is speaking of as if it were a caste system…
~suthainn
Indian Country’s Caste System
written by:
Cedric Sunray
Like most countries, corporations, international governing bodies, and the like, Indian Country has a clearly defined class structure in place. The pecking order of things is easy enough to see when one takes the time to look. Here are twenty classes of “Indian” to take a look through. This needs consistent revision, discussion, contemplation, and analysis. It is by no way set in stone, but it opens up a needed conversation. Where do you feel your tribe falls? How would you rearrange this chart? How can any of this be changed or is hierarchy just a reality of life? Is there even a need for a chart like this? If not, what alternative do you suggest to laying out the reality of Indian Country? Can you look past your own perceived biases and be objective? Tough questions for sure.
1st Class Indians
This category is composed of two groups. The first being small federally recognized communities located near major urban centers who are engaged in large-scale gaming enterprises. Shakopee Sioux in Minnesota, Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians in California, etc. come to mind. They have the economic power to simply brow beat anyone and anything in their way if they so choose or to project images of incredible overflowing generosity due to the excess cash they have to throw around. Their power, however, stands only when their ethnic makeup is composed of intermarriage with whites, Indians, or Hispanics. Of course Mexican “Hispanics” are already Indians, so that this another line of thought which lends to the Indian phenotype “authenticity” of these tribes. If they were of mixed-Black ancestry their legitimacy would be immediately placed into question. The second group in this category is related to those massive descendant based entities whose predominant membership/citizenship is comprised of racially white individuals. Their power stems from large annual federal allocations based on head counts, as well as their tendency to have large scale gaming enterprises. Examples include the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, etc. The viability for these tribes is the usage of the minority Indian culture and phenotype members within their tribe to project an image of validity to the outside world even though this minority, is well…in the minority. Both of these groups within the 1st Class category have large scale influence within the U.S. federal government via lobbyists and politicians which is paid for via their federal allocations from the U.S. and gaming profits.
2nd Class Indians
This category includes once again smaller scale federally recognized groups who have large, profitable gaming enterprises, but have a racially white phenotype. An example would be the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama. In political reality they tend to be untouchable based on the dollar count that their single engine business enterprise can create. However, no matter how many cultural centers, donations, etc. they can muster, they are still viewed by many across Indian Country simply as white people and therefore their cultural capital is diminished no matter how culturally retentive they may be.
3rd Class Indians
This category includes once again smaller scale federally recognized groups who have large, profitable gaming enterprises, but have a racially Black phenotype. An example would be the Pequot in Connecticut. In political reality they tend to be untouchable based on the dollar count that their single engine business enterprise can create. However, no matter how many cultural centers, donations, etc. they can muster, they are still viewed by many across Indian Country simply as Black people and therefore their cultural capital is diminished no matter how culturally retentive they may be.
4th Class Indians
This category includes federally recognized groups with moderate gaming success. Due to the lack of a high profile nature, they are usually left alone in media circles. Scrutiny of their tribal lineage, phenotype, etc. escapes the gaze of most as they are not as well connected and not able to provide substantial per capita payments to tribal members. Their federal recognition, as in the case of 1st -3rd Class Indians, works as a protective blanket towards investigation. Examples include the Catawba in South Carolina.
5th Class Indians
This category includes federally recognized groups, typically in more rural regions, who do not engage in gaming activities or whose gaming activities are simply the type which covers employee payroll and maintenance of facilities. Some of these are small, while others are quite large. Examples include the communities at Pine Ridge in South Dakota, Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana, or Red Lake in Minnesota, or Alabama-Coushatta in Texas. Most of these retain a predominantly Indian phenotype population despite the fact that some base their tribal enrollment solely on a descendant model. Jena Choctaw might be an exception to this amongst all, but the older generation.
6th Class Indians
This group includes federally recognized tribes identical to 5th Class Indians who are perceived as being of Black/mixed-Black ancestry. Examples include the Narragansett in Rhode Island, Mashpee Wampanoag in Massachussetts, and Shinnecock on Long Island, New York.
7th Class Indians
This category includes tribes who lack formal federal recognition or who have been denied federal recognition through the Office of Federal Acknowledgment/Bureau of Indian Affairs, but have some form of attachment to a larger federally recognized tribe from whom they receive some services as long as they “tow the line”. Examples include the Euchee of Oklahoma.
8th Class Indians
We now leave the “federal recognition protection blanket” and find ourselves in the land of those who do not appear on the federal register. The first group consists of those tribes who have been previously terminated, but still maintain community structure. Though they have no rights under any federal or state laws their identity as Indian can be more easily supported by the powers that be due to their former status as federally recognized. Even so, this category tends to be the most economically impoverished of all. Due to this they could just as easily be placed towards the bottom of the caste system.
9th Class Indians
Historic “non-federal” tribes residing on state recognized Indian reservations or those who have attended mission and Indian boarding schools typically fall into this grouping. Tribes who have shown consistent community continuity and who have been viewed as “a people apart” by area Blacks and whites define these. They typically have long standing relationships with the states they occupy and have various funding models or protections guaranteed by state law. Virtually all of these tribes have little upward mobility due to the perception that they possess some Black ancestry. Examples include the Lumbee and Haliwa-Saponi in North Carolina, Nanticoke in Delaware, MOWA Choctaw in Alabama, Pamunkey and Chickahominy in Virginia, and Houma in Louisiana. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and some federal tribes consistently attempt to divide these tribes against one another as they pose the greatest “threat” to the federal dollars these federal tribes command.
(cont’)
10th Class Indians
Historic “non-federal” tribes who do not live on reservation lands and who did not attend Indian boarding schools. However, virtually all of these attended localized Indian schools set apart from the area Black and white populations. Virtually identical to “6th Class Indians” in all ways. Examples include the Waccamaw Siouan in North Carolina, Clifton Choctaw in Louisiana. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and some federal tribes consistently attempt to divide these tribes against one another and “9th Class Indians” as they pose the greatest “threat” to the federal dollars these federal tribes command. 9th and 10th Class Indians are virtually the same.
*Various Ojibwa/Chippewa tribes in the Great Lakes/Midwest regions and tribes such as the Winnemen Wintu in California may fall into either the 9th or 10th Class categories minus the perception of Black ancestry.
11th Class Indians
Disenrolled members/citizens formerly of federally recognized tribes. These are predominantly people of long standing within their respective tribal communities who due to disagreements with standing elected leaders or generational grievances has led to their removal via greed and underhanded politics. They typically have no rights outside of those any ordinary American citizen possesses and they deal with the huge burden of being people who are not just fighting for their rights, but being denied rights they previously held. This group is primarily composed of descendants of tribes of either fullblood or mixed Hispanic or white ancestry. Examples include those disenrolled from Pechanga and Pala Band.
12th Class Indians
Adopted Children. For many decades Indian children were removed from their homes and placed with white families. While some of these children have found “their way home”, there still exist others who have not. Even those who find themselves enrolled with their tribes today face levels of bureaucracy, lack of acceptance, and other hurtful reminders of their removal from their families. Most of these children have an Indian phenotype and therefore they cannot “blend” into mainstream American society with any “success”.
13th Class Indians
Unenrolled Bloods. Due to blood quantum requirements amongst tribes there exist a class of primarily full to half-blooded younger people who do not qualify for enrollment in any of their parent’s or grandparent’s tribes. This group is subjected to a daily Indian reality and little of the programmatic safeguards which are provided by their respective federal tribes. They are all, however, virtually assured of racial Indian acceptance and therefore prejudicial treatment from mainstream society.
14th Class Indians
Tribes, whose enrollment is small and live within close proximity of one another, without state or federal recognition and who do not have or are perceived not to have a white phenotype predominant amongst their tribal population. Examples include the Piscataway of Maryland, Muwekma Ohlone in California, and Bayou Lacombe Choctaw in Louisiana.
15th Class Indians
State –recognized tribes whose predominant racial ancestry is perceived as white and who draw their membership from far reaching states. Typically this grouping does not have a consistent community where the majority of its tribal members reside in close contact with one another. Examples include the Echota Cherokee of Alabama. One must remember that there are many federal tribes who fit this description as well, but the federal banner they have protects them from scrutiny.
16th Class Indians
This grouping includes tribes who are not state or federally recognized and who are still perceived to be Indian/White or “mixed with Indian” in some form and live within close proximity of one another, but do not have formal state recognition due to a lack of recognition policy in the state where they reside. These tribes do not or are perceived not to have Black ancestry. Examples include the Muscogee Nation of Florida.
17th Class Indians
This category includes the same parameters as 16th Class Indians except these are considered to have some Black ancestry. Examples include some smaller tribes in states along the East Coast from Florida to North Carolina.
18th Class Indians
Indigenous people from outside the United States living within the United States. Most of these individuals (exempting Canada which is a whole other matter which would need to have a fully separate elongated chart) are regarded as curiosities or fit for presenting at powwows, etc. (notice Aztec dancers at intertribal powwows). When many from Central and South American communities attempt to assert their Indian identity in a practical sense they are typically marginalized as nationalities such as “Mexican” or “Ecuadorean”, etc. as opposed to Indigenous people from Mexico, etc.
19th Class Indians
Indian Freedmen. The most discriminated against of any tribal people in Indian Country are the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. Three of the five tribes (Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw) provide no acknowledgement of their status and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma have both had highly contentious and racially charged disenrollments, re-enrollments, dis-enrollments, and the story goes on and on.
20th Class Indians
Basically any other grouping one could imagine.
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