Just as an example, there are just about 70,000 Native Americans in Massachusetts, yet less than a 1/4 are members of recognized tribes. The rest, Natives that got away or found a way to survive, marrying a white or Black person and blending into society to survive. My great great great grandfather married a French woman to hold claim to some life. His son, my Great Great Grandfather Chief Ben Pictou, had a few wives one English and one Native. You can see what that does to ones DNA. 400 years of fighting, hiding, surviving, and today many are called pretendians. My Grandmother escaped the violence and discrimination and married a Vermonter moving here to Boston to live a happy life. She was finally recognized by the tribe when she was 80 years old, based on Lineage. I today carry that lineage and am proud of that blood. I feel it every day, my connection to living things, I feel the trees who talk to each other through the roots. Sharing the sun, some giving way to another tree near it by not growing branches and blocking the sun.