"Blood Will Tell is a valuable contribution to studies of the allotment era in particular and to studies of U.S.–American Indian relations and settler colonialism in general."—John R. Gram, Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"Ellinghaus's work shines a light on a crucial component of federal Indian policy."—Christopher Steinke, Nebraska History
"This book makes a significant contribution to how we interpret assumptions about ethnicity, skin color, and cultural behavior—from low-level civil servants to official ideology to indigenous notions of identity.
It is a welcome addition to furthering our understanding of blood quantum and Native American policy."—Ryan W. Schmidt, Great Plains Quarterly
"Ellinghaus offers this book as a means for critiquing and analyzing the phenomenon of settler colonialism which allowed for tropes of authenticity to persist to today. It also adds to the story of Native Americans' unrelenting resistance with racial science and white structures. In light of the semi-recent events at Standing Rock, Native American persistence throughout history is again highlighted by their ability to resist and act against their oppressors."—Hannah Blubaugh, Origins
“Katherine Ellinghaus brilliantly traces the uneven practices that produced a powerful discourse of American Indian blood quantum. With sure hand and subtle interpretation, Blood Will Tell offers a compelling new reading of a technology of identity at once complicated and crude.”—Philip J. Deloria, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and author of Indians in Unexpected Places
“Written with great clarity and precision. . . . Ellinghaus develops several key insights that will make contributions to historical scholarship on Indians, race, and western American history.”—Margaret Jacobs, Chancellor’s Professor of History at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and author of A Generation Removed: The Fostering and Adoption of Indigenous Children in the Postwar World
“A triumph of humanistic scholarship. . . . Many of the topics Ellinghaus covers are of salience to contemporary debates about race and racism.”—Gregory Smithers, author of Science, Sexuality, and Race in the United States and Australia, 1780–1940, Revised Edition?
