Chapter 10
Native American Chiefs and Notable Women
In This Chapter
Meeting memorable Native American leaders and warriors
Reading about some remarkable Native women
Their names are now a part of American culture. As well they should be, considering that they were the first “Americans,” and that their history is the pre-Columbian history of North America.
Even people who have little or no knowledge of the specific details of American history have heard of Geronimo, Sitting Bull, and Cochise.
In this chapter, we include the stories of a few of the more notable Native Americans — men and women who changed the way Indians interacted with the new U.S. and its government, and contributed to the legacy of the surviving Native tribes in our country. We discuss the ones who are most well known — breaking the men down by chronological order and including the women in a section all their own — but there are countless others who were an important part of Native American history.
Men of the 16th and 17th Centuries
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans were usually met warmly by Native peoples when they began arriving in their enormous ships. The Indians’ welcoming demeanor was indicative of a deep-seated respect for others. But conflicts were quick to blossom, and it wasn’t long before many began to realize they needed to take a cautious, “big picture” view of these newcomers.
When the Euros arrived, Native Americans had long-established, entrenched “lifestyles” (to use a detestable word). Theirs was an intricate and respectful balancing act that, yes, exploited the natural resources around them, but only for survival, and always with a sense of gratitude to the Great Spirit for allowing them to “benefit from his beneficence,” so to speak.
What’s really interesting about these initial “meet and greets” is that the Native peoples, upon realizing that they had visitors, manifested a great many traits that were immediately recognizable and understandable to the English, including generosity, respect, kindness, and openness. What was missing? Fear and suspicion. And that speaks volumes, doesn’t it? In the following sections, we outline some of the most notable men that exhibited these positive traits in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Powhatan (Powhatan, c. 1547–c. 1618)
Chief Powhatan, whose tribal name was Wahunsunacoc, was one of the earliest Native American leaders and is famous for being the first Indian chief to have contact with the English. Although John Cabot had met Abenakis and Mi’kmaqs in 1499 (see Chapter 9 for more on Cabot), Powhatan’s interaction was a significant milestone in Native/European history, and his contributions to Native American history bespeak leadership, plus a far-reaching vision of a mutually beneficial (and peaceful) relationship between Anglos and Indians. He is also remembered for being the father of Pocahontas. (See the section “Pocahontas (Powhatan, c. 1595–1618)” later in this chapter for more on Powhatan’s daughter.)
In the 16th century, Powhatan’s father, an Algonquin chief, had established a confederacy in Virginia by wiping out rival tribes. After his father’s death, Powhatan ascended to “the throne,” and brought in more tribes to expand the confederacy.
Here are some of the achievements and highlights Powhatan (see Figure 10-1) might have listed on his resume (if they had resumes back then . . . and writing):
Powhatan was the leader of the Powhatan Confederacy. This group was comprised of between 9,000 and 12,000 Indians from 30 tribes and 128 villages spread over 9,000 square miles along the south-central Atlantic seaboard, the area that now spans from Washington, D.C., to North Carolina (which, at the time, was designated by the English as Virginia).
1n 1607, Powhatan opposed the English settlement at Jamestown. As legend has it, he changed his mind when his daughter Pocahontas convinced him to free Englishman John Smith. (See the section “Pocahontas (Powhatan, c. 1595–1618)” later in this chapter for more on what’s fact and what’s fiction in the Pocahontas story.) Once Powhatan ceased opposing the Jamestown settlement, the English presented him with a crown and gifts to cement the relationship.
Powhatan’s fellow tribesmen did not respect their chief’s friendly relations with the English. Why? Because the English continued to take all the best land, as well as steal Indian food stores. Bands of Indians attacked settlers and it was only after Pocahontas married the Englishman John Rolfe in 1609, the first tobacco planter on Powhatan’s territory, that a solid peace was established by Powhatan, which survived his death.
Powhatan died in Virginia in 1618, probably from smallpox. Pocahontas died the same year in England, probably from tuberculosis or pneumonia.
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Figure 10-1: Chief Powhatan. |
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Squanto (Pawtuxet, c. 1580s–1622)
In the 16th and 17th centuries in North America, transportation was, to say the least, difficult. Travel was done on foot and horse, and in boats and wagons. Yet Pawtuxet Indian Tisquantum (now known as Squanto) was a world traveler, and he was in England and Spain for years at a time, traveled on foot in Europe, and traversed the east coast of North America from Newfoundland to New England. Yet ironically his traveling was mostly forced, due to being kidnapped and held as a slave by both the English and the Spanish.
Squanto was born in the 1580s of the Pawtuxet tribe. It’s unknown what the exact date of his birth is as well as where he was born, but the Pawtuxet tribe was settled near Plymouth, Massachusetts, so it’s likely that that’s around where Tisquantum was born.
Some historians believe that Squanto was one of five Indians kidnapped in 1605 by Captain John Weymouth and taken to England, although there are questions about the validity of this story.
What is known is that even if he was in England from 1605 or so, he was back in North America by 1614. It was that year that English Captain Thomas Hunt persuaded Squanto and other Indians to board his ship to, we suppose, “check it out.” The invitation was a trap, however, and it wasn’t long before Squanto was on his way to Malaga, Spain, to be sold as a slave.
Squanto was purchased from his Spanish slaveholder by monks who took him to live with them in a monastery. After three years there, he fled to England, and ended up on a boat back to America. By this time he spoke fluent English, which served him and Pilgrim settlers well a few years later when Squanto helped the settlers survive their first winter in the New World and taught them survival skills, including fishing and planting, that literally saved their lives.
Today, Squanto is remembered for his assistance to the first Pilgrims. He died of smallpox in 1622.
Men of the 18th Century
The British and the French dominated the 18th century in the New World, and their interactions with Natives were both amicable and contentious. Some of the most famous Indian chiefs are from this era.
Big issues for Natives during this period included:
Choosing with whom to align
Knowing who to trust
Maintaining cultural and tribal unity and integrity in the face of ceaseless incursion by Europeans
All of these issues boil down to long-term survival. Treaties were drafted and then ignored, Indian encampments were attacked for no reason, and then, when the British and the French stopped fighting, Indians lost power. They could no longer play one against the other, and this made precarious their well-being. And colonists doing things like paying bounties for Indians (or their scalps) certainly did not give them an encouraging sense of their future. These sections detail the Indigenous men whose bravery and loyalty to their tribes make them notable Natives.
Pontiac (Ottawa, c. 1712/1725–1769)
Pontiac was a great Ottawa chief whose name is now mainly known to many Americans as an automobile. How many Pontiac drivers these days have any knowledge whatsoever of where the name of their car came from?
Pontiac’s early years are lost to time, since neither the British nor the French have any records of the doings of his Ottawa tribe during his first three decades, and there exist no known written Native documents. Historians have speculated on these years, and the consensus is that his father was an Ottawa chief and his mother a Chippewa woman.
Pontiac’s first appearance in the historical record dates from the mid-1740s. This is when he is believed to have defended Detroit against an attack by northern tribes.
Then, in 1755, Pontiac participated in the defeat of British General Edward Braddock during the early phases of the French and Indian War. (See Chapter 11 for more info.) He is most remembered, though for his leadership in what has come to be known as Pontiac’s War, or Pontiac’s Rebellion.
In 1763, the victorious British were in charge, and the French-friendly Indians weren’t happy about it. At all.
Some of the reasons for their discontent included the following:
The British physically abused the Indians.
The British encouraged rampant drunkenness among the Indians.
The British cheated the Indians when trading with them.
The British refused to supply Indians with the ammunition they needed to hunt for food and skins.
The British arrogantly sold off Indian land, without even so much as a “by your leave.”
The British treated the Natives more like worthless underlings than equals.
The British refused to continue the French practice of bartering with the Indians for needed goods and supplies.
Using his persuasive leadership skills, Pontiac pulled together a Pan-Indian coalition to go after the British. Thirteen British forts were attacked at the same time by tribes united in their hatred of the British and, by the end of 1763, eight forts had fallen.
Unfortunately for Pontiac and his “troops,” however, he received no assistance from his presumed allies, the French. Much to Pontiac’s horror, he learned that the French had given up great tracts of their land along the Mississippi and, without a source for ammunition, he had no choice but to abandon the revolt and make peace with the British.
In 1766, Pontiac and 40 other chiefs acknowledged that they were now subjects of the Crown. Pontiac was murdered in 1769 by an Indian who had been hired by an English trader.
Tecumseh (Shawnee, c. 1768–1813)
Tecumseh, a Shawnee, had an understanding of the white man that both inspired and terrified him, and his passionate devotion to Indian sovereignty made him one of the most important Indian voices of the 18th century.
Tecumseh, whose tribal name was Tecumtha or Tekamthi, knew in his heart — regardless of the platitudes and reassurances Indian tribes were hearing from Washington and settler leaders — that the ultimate goal of the white man was clear:
Ownership of all Indian lands
The extermination of all Indian peoples
With the help of his brother Tenskwatawa, a visionary prophet, Tecumseh forged in his mind the idea of a line in North America beyond which the white man would not be allowed to pass: the Ohio River. He and his brother formed Prophetstown, a village that welcomed all Native peoples and which existed to further the rights and future survival of Indians. But he was never successful in implementing his dream of securing ancient Indian lands for Indian people. Tecumseh also traveled to many other tribes to try to persuade them to join him in a revolt he was planning against the Europeans.
Tecumseh’s major contribution to Native American history was his unwillingness to simply surrender Native lands to the whites on their demand. He is remembered today for his impeccable resistance and ethnic pride.
Tecumseh was killed fighting for the British during the War of 1812.
Was there a Tecumseh curse?
After Tecumseh was killed, his brother Tensk-watawa, who claimed powers of clairvoyance, is alleged to have predicted that if the despised William Henry Harrison were ever elected president of the United States, he would get sick and die in office.
Tenskwatawa also stated that the U.S. presidents elected every 20 years following Harrison’s death would also die in office.
Well, Harrison was elected president, and he did get sick in office, and he did die shortly thereafter.
And, just as Tenskwatawa had supposedly said, each president elected every 20 years after Harrison’s demise also died in office. The string of 20-year presidential deaths in office stopped with Ronald Reagan.
Although there’s no concrete evidence that Tenskwatawa actually placed a curse on U.S. presidents, it is certainly quite the bizarre coincidence that what he said would happen, actually did happen for every president until Reagan, who broke the curse when he survived the 1981 assassination attempt on his life.
Chief Seattle (Suquamish, c. 1786–1866)
Chief Seattle followed in the footsteps of his father Schweabe, a Suquamish chief, and showed bravery and leadership as a very young man when he rallied and organized local tribes to create a unified defense against Indian raiders. However, his later decisions, after a conversion to Roman Catholicism, were not met with acclaim by many of his fellow Natives. Seattle agreed to treaties that relinquished Indian lands to the white man, some of which led to his people ending up on reservations. But it is believed that his overarching purpose was to protect Indians, and he knew that treaties were better than war. Some would argue that point.
But Chief Seattle, also known as Sealth, is mostly remembered for a speech he may not have even made.
Oh, the Chief did make a speech in 1854 in downtown Seattle (the city named in his honor), but he made it in his native Salishan language, and the only record if it came from notes made during the speech by Henry A. Smith — who didn’t understand Salishan!
It is believed that another attendee at the speech translated the chief’s words into Chinook, which Smith was able to understand.
We’ve all heard of procrastinating writers, but Henry Smith may have set a record. He waited 30 years to transcribe his notes and, frankly, the resulting speech sounds suspiciously English for an elderly, pure-blood Suquamish chief. Nonetheless, the sentiments expressed in the beloved speech certainly speak to the general feelings Indians were experiencing at the time. (Probably now, too, to some extent.)
The 19th Century
The 19th century was a time of great struggle and sorrow for Native peoples. Battles were frequent, resistance was met with annihilation, and there was a pervasive sense among Indians that they were a dying people. Some fought back, yet in the end, European domination was inexorable and crushing.
The strength of the colonial expansionist movement was relentless. And once gold was discovered out west, the move to the Pacific intensified. Tribal lands were routinely violated, treaties and boundaries were consistently ignored, and Native Americans were increasingly “rounded up” and shipped off to reservations. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Some Indians refused to sit still for what they saw as genocide.
Cochise (Chiricahua Apache, c. 1812–1874)
One of Cochise’s most striking traits was his patriotism.
Yes, Cochise, the fiercest of warriors and determined exactor of vengeance against whites, was a patriot — but he was an Apache patriot who loved his people and his people’s lands.
Cochise was born in the area that is now southern Arizona. At the beginning of his second decade, all hell broke loose between the Apache people and the European settlers.
Unrest and fighting continued for almost 20 years until the U.S. annexed the area in 1850. For the next ten years or so, it was relatively peaceful, but then, in 1861, renegade Apaches raided John Ward’s farm and kidnapped his son — and Cochise and five others got blamed for it.
How? During a conclave with an army officer named Bascom, who was assigned to investigate the raid and kidnapping, Cochise and his men were accused and arrested. Cochise managed to escape, but his men, mostly relatives of Cochise, ended up being held hostage and later hung.
This seems to have been the incident that set Cochise on the warpath. For the next ten years, he fought battle after battle with the white man, until he was surrounded one day in the Dragoon Mountains and taken into custody.
Cochise escaped yet again, however, and battled whites until 1872 when a lasting peace was negotiated and he retired to a reservation where he died of natural causes in 1874.
Geronimo’s bones?
In 1918, it is believed that Geronimo’s skull and some bones were stolen from his grave and transported to New Haven, Connecticut, to be used in initiation rituals at the infamous Yale University secret society Skull and Bones.
A recently discovered letter written by then-member Winter Mead and published in the Yale Alumni Magazine seems to confirm the truth of the story, and Geronimo’s nephew Harlyn Geronimo has written to President George W. Bush requesting his assistance in the return of the relics to their proper resting place.
Geronimo (Chiricahua Apache, 1829–1909)
Geronimo is one of the most remembered leaders of the warring Apaches of the Southwest during the 19th-century pioneer years. If the Apaches had been Scottish, Geronimo would have been their William Wallace (the subject of Mel Gibson’s classic film, Braveheart).
According to Geronimo, he was made war chief of his tribe at the age of 16, reporting to tribal leader Cochise. When Cochise died, his son Natchez took over, but he was quickly displaced by Geronimo, who was much more skilled in Indian battle tactics.
In 1858, Mexicans slaughtered Geronimo’s wife, mother, and children, and his hatred for whites was born.
For almost 30 years, Geronimo warred with the white settlers and soldiers, refusing to relinquish his tribal lands to those he considered interlopers and thieves. He fought, but not out of vengeance; he wanted peace. In his autobiography, Geronimo was very clear: “The Indians always tried to live peaceably with the white soldiers and settlers.”
But considering the seemingly insatiable hunger for land, and Geronimo’s realization that whites would take what they wanted, peace with the Chiricahua was infrequent and short-lived.
In 1876, Geronimo and a band of a few hundred Apaches holed up in the mountains of Mexico and defended themselves against capture attempts by the U.S. military and raids by the Mexicans for almost a decade in what has long been considered a kind of “Apache’s Last Stand.”
But Geronimo’s resistance, motivated by tribal loyalty, was doomed to fail and, on September 4, 1886, Geronimo surrendered to U.S. General Nelson Miles. Geronimo then lived on military facilities, became a farmer, appeared at the 1904 World’s Fair, and even rode in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade.
Geronimo died of pneumonia and tuberculosis on February 17, 1909, still officially a prisoner of war.
Good gun
General Leonard Woods was involved in the capture and guarding of Geronimo and wrote in his memoirs about one memorable interaction with the ornery chief:
“About 2 o’clock in the afternoon the old Indian came to me and asked to see my rifle. It was a Hotchkiss, and he said he had never seen its mechanism. When he asked me for the gun and some ammunition I must confess I felt a little nervous, for I thought it might be a device to get hold of one of our weapons. I made no objection, however, and let him have it, showing him how to use it. He fired at a mark, just missing one of his own men who was passing. This he regarded as a great joke, rolling on the ground and laughing heartily and shouting, ‘Good gun.’”
Sitting Bull (Sioux, Lakota, c. 1831–1890)
Sitting Bull was born around 1831 and died in 1890 when he was shot by a Lakota who was working with the U.S. government as a law officer.
Sitting Bull was one of the most passionate resisters of white domination and their exploitation of Indian lands and, throughout his life, he warned his people to be very careful about embracing white civilization and all that came with it. He did admit that there was much about America that was great, but he detested the U.S. government’s efforts to “round up” Indians onto reservations, and he had no qualms about fighting back when threatened.
Sitting Bull is probably one of the two or three most famous Indians in history and is remembered mostly for his devastating defeat (with Crazy Horse and others) of General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn (“Custer’s Last Stand”) in 1876.
After defeating Custer and fleeing to Canada, he ultimately refused a U.S. offer of a pardon in agreement for relocating with his people to a reservation. Sitting Bull did eventually surrender in 1881, because his people were starving. He served time in a military prison, and, after rejoining his people upon his release, later performed in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show for $50 a week until his repulsion for whites grew so overwhelming he quit.
In 1890, it was learned by the U.S. government that Sitting Bull’s people were regularly gathering to perform the stirring ghost dance, which they believed would summon their dead ancestors to earth and allow them to overthrow the white interlopers. Police were sent to Sitting Bull’s cabin to arrest him in hopes that his removal would create fragmentation among the Lakota and destroy their sense of unity. Several of the police officers were Lakotas.
Sitting Bull at first surrendered peaceably, but then began to resist after being taunted for a lack of bravery by his 17-year-old son Crow Foot. Sitting Bull then pleaded with his followers to rescue him and, when two Lakota burst through the crowd and fired on the police, a Lakota officer named Catch the Bear shot and killed Sitting Bull.
Sitting Bull, who many believed had the gift of prophecy, once had a vision that he would be killed by one of his own.
One word at a time
Ron His Horse Is Thunder is a descendant of Sitting Bull and lives on the Lakota Standing Rock Reservation, which is in North and South Dakota (although the largest concentrations of Lakotas are in South Dakota).
The Standing Rock Reservation is plagued with great poverty and a staggeringly high teenage suicide rate, but His Horse Is Thunder believes it is not unemployment causing young people to embrace hopelessness and choose to end their lives, but loss of identity and, thus, he is working to reinstill pride in his people’s legacy.
His Horse Is Thunder’s legendary ancestor did not garner him any special treatment growing up. On the contrary, he was told from childhood that his lineage placed extra responsibility to his people upon him. His Horse Is Thunder thus went to law school, earned his degree, and then returned to the reservation where he was elected Tribal Chief of the Lakota.
One of the first ideas His Horse Is Thunder began implementing is to make the Lakota language the official language of the reservation. He hopes to one day hold all tribal council meetings in the Lakota language, and he is encouraging adults to learn Lakota (only 25 percent of the reservation’s18,000 Lakotans are fluent) and then teach it to their children.
His Horse Is Thunder puts his efforts where his mouth is, too. He has promised that if he is not fluent in Lakota by 2009 when he is up for re-election, he’ll decline to run.
His Horse Is Thunder is the Chairman of the President’s Board of Advisors on Tribal Colleges and Universities, and is a board member for the American Indian College Fund, American Indian Higher Education Consortium, and the North Dakota Tribal College Association. His great-great-great grandfather must be very proud.
Crazy Horse (Sioux, Oglala Lakota, c. 1840–1877)
Crazy Horse was one of the most adamant opponents to the whites’ plundering of their sacred hills and, from an early age, he became known as a brave and fearless warrior. He was given his father’s name as a young man, and he ultimately had three wives and was revered as a gifted leader and spiritual guide.
Yet, looking back, there is an irony in the Native Americans’ response to the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota in the late 1870s and the subsequent influx of whites seeking the Hills’ riches.
The Oglala Sioux and other tribes fought fiercely — and futilely — to stop the gold rush, which they saw as an exploitation of their sacred lands. The Black Hills were part of their heritage, and that meant more to the tribes than the wealth buried beneath them. Yet Natives routinely lived off the land and used its resources, so in all likelihood, their problem with the mining of gold was that it was being done by whites.
To this day, the Oglala Lakota have rejected the offer of monetary payments for the South Dakota lands (payments for the hundreds of billions of dollars of gold removed from the Black Hills), insisting instead on the return of their land.
In 1876, Crazy Horse and an army of 1,500 Lakota and Cheyenne successfully defeated General George Crook in the Battle of the Rosebud. This defeat prevented Crook from continuing on and reinforcing General George Armstrong Custer’s troops, and it allowed Crazy Horse to join the battle of Little Big Horn and help Sitting Bull decisively defeat Custer.
A year later, however, Crazy Horse surrendered to U.S. forces. The reason? The same reason many Indian warriors gave up: hunger and the inability to feed his men.
While garrisoned/imprisoned at Fort Robinson, Crazy Horse’s wife became ill and he left the fort without permission to take her to her parents’ home. Upon his return to the fort, he was arrested and, when he resisted, was bayoneted in the stomach. (There is some question as to whether he was stabbed by a soldier, or killed himself as a last act of honor.) He died hours later, and his parents removed his body and buried it. To this day, his burial place is unknown.
Chief Joseph (Nez Perce, 1840–1904)
Chief Joseph’s father Joseph the Elder was an early Native American convert to Christianity and, shortly after his son was born in 1840, he had the boy baptized and later educated at a Christian school. Joseph the Elder was a supporter of peaceful relations with whites and, upon his death in 1871, his son became Chief Joseph at the age of 31 and sought to continue his father’s ways.
Before his death, Joseph the Elder warned his son about the intentions of the white man, telling him to “stop his ears” when approached by whites to sign treaties giving away parts of their land, the land that held their ancestors’ graves. Joseph swore he would abide by his father’s guidance. “A man who would not defend his father’s grave is worse than a wild animal,” he said.
But Chief Joseph, worried about what the American military would do to his people, and with a dedicated spirit of wanting to protect them, ultimately made great concessions to the U.S. to keep peace.
In 1873, Chief Joseph signed a treaty with the U.S. that allowed the Nez Perce to stay on their land. And for four years, the tribe lived in relative peace. But then, in 1877, the U.S. informed Chief Joseph that they were rescinding the treaty and that he and his people had 30 days to leave their land. If they remained beyond 30 days, it would be interpreted as an act of war.
Chief Joseph met with U.S. General Oliver Otis Howard, who tried persistently to persuade the chief to move his people. At this meeting, Chief Joseph spoke of individual rights and personal freedom, telling the general that he did not believe that the “Great Spirit Chief gave one kind of men the right to tell another kind of men what they must do.”
Shortly thereafter, a series of events occurred that would serve to emblazon Chief Joseph’s name in the annals of Native American history:
General Howard went out with Chief Joseph and some of his men to look for land onto which the Nez Perce could relocate.
Ultimately, General Howard wanted Chief Joseph to move his people to an area already occupied by both whites and Indians, assuring him that the military would remove the people there and guarantee it safe for the Nez Perce.
Chief Joseph refused all land offered. He would not take what was not his.
During this period, some of his young braves killed a few whites and Chief Joseph knew that this would prompt military action against the Nez Perce.
Chief Joseph and his fellow chiefs set off for Canada in an attempt to save the lives of the Nez Perce.
Thus began Chief Joseph’s 1,500-mile trek to freedom. A band of 750 Nez Perce evaded and fought the U.S. military in what is considered to day one of the most brilliant military retreats of Native American history, which is still studied today. In the end, however, the Nez Perce gave up.
After many deaths and the deprivation that came from being on the run, Chief Joseph surrendered to General Nelson Miles on October 5, 1877. His surrender speech (“I will fight no more forever”) is one of the most memorable speeches in Native American history.
Chief Joseph died in September of the year he met with his former enemy General Howard (see the sidebar, “Enemies meet,” earlier), 1904, and was buried in Nepselem, Washington.
Enemies meet
In March 1904, 27 years after the Indian war between General O. O. Howard and Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, the two former foes met as invited guests at the commencement ceremony of the Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Notable Indian Women: Not Stay-At-Wigwam Ladies
A powerful and important element of Native American tradition and culture is the concept of balance — balance in all things.
Thus, even though traditional Native American societies would seem at first glance to have been patriarchal and restrictive of women, the reality is that women always played critically important roles in the life of the tribe, and their contributions were not seen as master/servant, or dominant male/ submissive female roles, but rather as the balancing element needed for survival and a happy life.
Native women were invaluable components for Native American life:
They gathered materials and built (and then maintained) the homes.
They gathered firewood for cooking and heating.
They located and gathered herbs for medicinal purposes.
They tended crops.
They made tools from bones.
They weaved blankets.
They crafted pottery.
They raised the children.
Medicine women treated ailments, and it was believed that women, as the source of all new life, had a greater connection to the spirit world than the men of the tribe.
The women discussed in this section are examples of the strong, independent female Native Americans who, to the tribe, were analogous to their venerated and beloved Earth Mother.
Pocahontas (Powhatan, c. 1595–1618)
Pocahontas was born in Virginia around 1595, the daughter of the great Indian Chief Powhatan. It is believed she was around 10 when she saw her first white man at the Jamestown settlement. Over the next few years, she became a frequent visitor to the settlement, serving as a liaison between her father and her fellow tribe members and the English colonists. It is known she saw to it that the settlers always had food, and that she carried messages back and forth between her father and the Jamestown leaders.
In 1607, one of the English settlers, Captain John Smith (see Figure 10-2), was captured by Powhatan Indians and brought before the great Indian Chief Powhatan as a prisoner. It has long been believed that Smith was sentenced to be executed and, so the story goes, was saved when Powhatan’s 12- or 13-year-old daughter Pocahontas threw herself across his body to prevent him being killed, and then later, persuaded her father to let him go, which he did.
This “Native princess rescue” story is in doubt these days (there’s no such thing as a Native American “princess,” for one thing), but we do know that Powhatan did meet with Smith and that Smith was released from his custody. It is more likely that the Pocahontas story was an adoption ritual, rather than the dramatic story that has survived.
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Figure 10-2: Captain John Smith checking his compass. |
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One day, Pocahontas was captured by the colonists and held for ransom. The English wanted all the English prisoners Powhatan was holding, as well as supplies and tools they claimed the Indians had stolen. Powhatan acceded to some of the demands, but Pocahontas ended up being held for a year, during which she converted to Christianity and, in 1614, when Pocahontas was around 19, married the Englishman John Rolfe. Rolfe ultimately took his Indian bride to England and, from all reports, she was what you might call the “belle of the ball,” and known as Lady Rebecca Rolfe.
In 1617, Pocahontas and her husband boarded a ship for a trip to Virginia, but they had to turn back when Pocahontas became gravely ill. She died in 1618, probably from pneumonia or tuberculosis. Her last words were reported to be, “All must die. ’Tis enough that the child liveth.” (She and Rolfe had had a son, Thomas, in Virginia before they left for England.)
Pocahontas’s contributions to Native American history were her efforts to maintain peaceful relations between the English and her people, and her later embrace by London society, proving to the English that Indians were not “savages.”
Sacagawea (Shoshone, 1787–1812)
Sacagawea was a Shoshone guide and translator for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their 28-month “Corps of Discovery” expedition across the western United States between 1804 and 1806.
Sacagawea had been kidnapped by the Hidatsa tribe at the age of 9, and later purchased by French trapper Toussaint Charboneau when she was 16 to be his wife. Shortly thereafter, Charbonneau was hired by Lewis and Clark to accompany them on their trek westward because of his skills as a guide, and also because of his wife’s translation abilities.
Was Porivo really Sacagawea?
How old was Sacagawea when she died? Well, the answer to that question depends on who you ask.
The widely accepted story is that Charbonneau and Sacagawea returned to the Hidatsa people after the Lewis and Clark expedition and spent three years with the tribe, and then moved to St. Louis, Missouri. A surviving December 1812 log entry by trader John Luttig states that Charbonneau’s wife of around 25 years of age died of putrid fever (typhus) and left behind a daughter. (Sacagawea had given birth to a daughter around 1811.) The log entry referred to the wife as a “Snake Squaw,” meaning Shoshone.
So that’s that, right? Sacagawea died in St. Louis in 1812 at the age of 25.
Not so fast.
Shoshone legend tells a different story. According to the myth believed by many, Sacagawea’s husband Charbonneau was abusive and, after moving to St. Louis, she fled him and joined a group of Comanches, ultimately settling with the Shoshone in Wyoming.
She lived there as Porivo, wore a Jefferson Medal identical to the ones given out to the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and spoke about seeing the Pacific when she was young. Porivo died at the Wind River Indian Reservation on April 9, 1884. If Porivo was, in fact, Sacagawea, she would have been 97 years old at the time of her death.
In 1925, Dr. Charles Fletcher, a Sioux physician hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to investigate the Porivo story, did extensive research and ultimately concluded that Porivo was, in fact, Sacagawea. Porivo’s grave is in the cemetery at Fort Washakie on the Wind River Indian Reservation. A monument there describes Sacagawea’s life and her contributions to American history.
Lewis and Clark also knew that Sacagawea’s presence (and her new baby born on the trail shortly after the team embarked) would be a clear signal to other Indians that theirs was a peaceful expedition.
During the trek, Sacagawea was invaluable. She identified herbs and plants that they could use for food and medicinal purposes, and she is even the person we can thank for the existence of the Lewis and Clark journals: She rescued them when a boat they were in flooded and the books fell into the water.
After the expedition, Sacagawea and Charbonneau lived first with the Hidatsa and then in St. Louis (on William Clark’s invitation) where she had a daughter and her son was enrolled in a Christian school. She reportedly died of typhoid in 1812. In 2000, the U.S. minted a Sacagawea $1 coin in her honor.
Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee leader (1945–)
When Wilma Mankiller ran for the position of deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma in 1983 with Ross Swimmer, her tires were slashed and she received death threats. They won handily.
Wilma Mankiller was born on November 18, 1945, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. When Mankiller was 12, her father agreed to move the family to San Francisco, California, as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs relocation program. He and all the other families who agreed to the relocation were promised “a better life.” Today, Mankiller describes the housing project they ended up living in as “Harlem West.”
When Ross Swimmer resigned as chief in 1985 to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Mankiller stepped into the position of chief and was then elected in 1987 and, in a landslide, in 1991. She resigned in 1995 for health reasons, but is still a vibrant voice in Native American affairs.
Ada Deer (Menominee, 1935–)
The Native American’s struggle to retain — and in many cases, regain — their identity continued well into the 20th century, and is ongoing even today. One of the staunchest defenders of Native sovereignty is Menominee nation member Ada Deer. In fact, the very existence of the Menominee is due, in large part, to Ada Deer’s efforts.
Ada Deer’s life is a story of firsts. Born in Keshena, Wisconsin, in 1935, throughout her life she has achieved these notable firsts:
She was the first Menominee to receive an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
She was the first Native American to receive a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University.
She was the first woman to serve as chief of the Menominee tribe in Wisconsin.
She was the first Native American woman to serve as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
She created the first grassroots organization — Determination of Right and Unity for Menominee Shareholders (DRUMS) — specifically formed to counter the U.S. government’s termination of Menominee rights. Her efforts led to President Nixon signing the Menominee Restoration Act of 1972, re-establishing tribal sovereignty.
She created the first social work training program on Native American reservations.
The Wisconsin Historical Society has described her as a “nationally recognized social worker, community organizer, activist, and political leader, [and] a champion of Indian rights who led the successful campaign to restore federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe.”
Today, Deer is the director of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.