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Racial Identity

Admixture and Genetics, Genetics

Within mtDNA, genetic scientists have found specific nucleotide sequences classified as “Native American markers” because the sequences are understood to have been inherited through the generations of genetic females within populations that first settled the “New World.” There are five primary Native American mtDNA haplogroups in which there are clusters of closely linked markers inherited together. All five haplogroups have been identified by researchers as “prehistoric Native North American samples,” and it is commonly asserted that the majority of living Native Americans possess one of the common five mtDNA haplogroup markers.

Most DNA testing examines few lineages that comprise a minuscule percentage of one’s total ancestry, approximately less than 1 percent of total DNA. Every human being has about one thousand ancestors going back ten generations.

In Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science, Kim Tallbear states that a person, “… could have up to two Native American grandparents and show no sign of Native American ancestry. For example, a genetic male could have a maternal grandfather (from whom he did not inherit his Y chromosome) and a paternal grandmother (from whom he did not inherit his mtDNA) who were descended from Native American founders, but mtDNA and Y-chromosome analyses would not detect them.”

Federally recognized tribes do not accept genetic-ancestry results as appropriate documentation for enrollment and do not advise applicants to submit such documentation.

Considered a property that would hold Indians back on the road to civilization, Indian blood could be diluted over generations through interbreeding with Euro-American populations. Native Americans were seen as capable of cultural evolution (unlike Africans) and therefore of cultural absorption into the white populace. “Kill the Indian, save the man” was a mantra of nineteenth-century U.S. assimilation policies.