71 pages • 2 hours read
David TreuerThe Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 6: “Boom City—Tribal Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century”
Part 6, “Blood Quantum and Disenrollment” Summary
In February 2015, the talk at Tulalip Resort Casino north of Seattle was all about marijuana. The Justice Department had released a memo that seemed to provide a pathway for tribes to get into the pot business “as a manifestation of tribal sovereignty” (363). Tulalip comprises separate tribes who came together to form a new community. For them, marijuana seemed to offer the key to prosperity. For some, it also may have offered the key to problems rampant on the reservation, such as heroin addiction, sexual abuse, and domestic violence.
Though tribes and tribal members have branched out into various business ventures over the last several decades, including the sale of fireworks, the casino is the parent of all tribal industry. Currently, 238 tribes “own and run gaming operations” (364). Some casino-owning tribes pay tribal members a portion of their profits directly, while others use the revenue as a tax base. Revenue from casinos has been used to open museums and to expand tribal schools. Additionally, tribal casinos do not pay corporate taxes, but they do pay payroll taxes.
Despite their ability to retain relative autonomy, states and the federal government have attempted to gain a stake in tribal gambling. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which established three classes of gambling (casino gaming was in Class III) and gave the FBI “jurisdiction over tribal gaming” (372). After the passage of the law, the tribal casino business boomed. Profits swelled “from $100 million in 1988 to more than $26 billion in 2009” (372). Still, little changed for most Indigenous people. Unemployment remained rampant among tribal communities, especially in California, where the industry grew significantly.
To determine who could profit from the casino business, tribes introduced blood quantum tests to determine who had enough tribal ancestry to qualify. Some tribes used the tests to disenroll hundreds of people in what was really an effort to retain more profits among a select group. Tribes have long had their own ways of determining who belongs to a tribe. Membership is often “based on language, residence, and culture” (379).
Part 6 Analysis
This section focuses on the various business ventures that tribes have pursued since the 1980s, in efforts to both establish their social influence and bring wealth into tribal communities. Though casinos are tribes’ original and most lucrative business, some tribes, particularly those in Washington state, are looking to get into the marijuana business. The cannabis industry has been lucrative for White entrepreneurs, but it still largely excludes Black, Latin, and Indigenous people—that is, those who have been most negatively impacted over the decades by racist drug policies.
While Indigenous communities have been excluded from economic opportunities due to racist discrimination, they have also perpetrated discrimination. The practice of blood quantum is merely a method of limiting tribal membership so that tribes in lucrative industries, such as gambling, can maximize profits among existing members. Blood quantum is, arguably, a manifestation of internalized racism. White supremacy and the racial pseudoscience of the 19th century sought to determine racial identity along percentages of ancestry. Tribal communities, on the other hand, have traditionally had a broader understanding of what determines tribal identity: It was not merely a matter of traced ancestry, but also of one’s embraces of traditions and language, as well as place of residence.
