Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2024

Louise Ellen Bluestone St. Pierre Smith was born Aug. 13, 191910,n Paxton Township, Redwood County, Minnesota. Her parents were Samuel Mazakoksidan Hezakamani Bluestone (1860-1923) and Louise Mary Tunigaanhdinaji Robinson Stoops Bluestone (1858-1932).

Louise’s grandparents were Tukantiouccya Bluestone (1828-1904) and Haliestone Anna Josephine Makahdegawiŋ Allen Bluestone (1830-1910); and Thomas Charles Tom Tanka Robinson (1842-1870) and Mary Janes Wigiwiŋ Wakute Redwing (1845-1880).

According to an article, “Louise Smith: A Fighter dies-but her feud lives on” by Maura Lerner from the Minneapolis Star Tribune on May 25, 1996, she still arrived in the small mobile home she moved into long before the casino brought her wealth. Each tribal member received more than $600,000 a year in casino profits. Louise Ellen Bluestone St. Pierre Smith, who spent most of her life in poverty, gave away most of her newfound wealth.

But she didn’t shy away from a good fight.

“I don’t need or want money. I just want my tribe back,” she said in the article by Maura Lerner. “I’m worried about my people, and I want to die knowing that we can be an honest, humble, and sharing tribe of Indians again, not just a bunch of money hungry monsters out to take from each other, and to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world.”

Leonard Prescott was chairman of Little Six, Inc., the gaming enterprise owned and operated by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota) Community. The phenomenal success of Mystic Lake (launched under Prescott’s leadership) has made the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community the largest employer in Scott County and a major philanthropic force. Leonard was tribal chairman starting in 1984 and continued until he lost the re-election to his cousin, Stanley Crooks, who took over in 1993.

Louise supported Prescott, and so she became embroiled in a long string of court fights and lawsuits challenging Crooks, who had the members voted on the issue repeatedly, and everyone on the membership rolls were legitimate.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community tribal members approved a new constitution that dramatically changed tribal government and expanded membership. It eliminated the blood quantum which requires a person to prove they have 25 percent Indian blood and changed to a system based on family lineage.

It measured the amount of “Indian blood” you have. It can affect your identity, your relationships and whether you — or your children — may become a citizen of your tribe. According to “So What Exactly Is ‘Blood Quantum’?”The Code Switch Podcast by Kat Chow, Feb. 9, 2018, blood quantum was initially a system that the federal government placed onto tribes to limit their citizenship. How tribes use blood quantum varies from tribe to tribe.

Blood quantum minimums really restrict who can be a citizen of a tribe. If you’ve got 25 percent Dakota blood — according to that tribe’s blood quantum standards — and you have children with someone who has a lower blood quantum, those kids won’t be able to enroll.

The federal government, and specifically the Department of the Interior, issues what is called a “Certified Degree of Indian Blood,” and that is a card like an ID card. So, the way that blood quantum is calculated is by using tribal documents, and usually it’s a tribal official or a government official that calculates it.

Blood quantum really emerges to trace race between generations. According to Elizabeth Rule, the blood quantum works through another example that people may be more familiar with — and that’s the ‘one drop rule.’ Blood quantum emerged to measure “Indian-ness” through a construct of race. So that over time, Indians would literally breed themselves out and rid the federal government of their legal duties to uphold treaty obligations.

Tribes today had to adapt, and blood quantum for some tribes in their view has been a way to preserve their community. It is the tribe’s sovereign right to determine their own membership and whether that involves a blood quantum minimum or lineal descent system.

The last 25 years of her life was spent on the feud. The fight had gone on for more than a generation.

Louise died Sunday, May 19, 1996 at the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community at age 85, the eldest member of the community in 1996.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community sent a representative to her funeral, and ordered all flags on the reservation lowered to half-staff in her memory.