Top 5 Popular Women Native Americans in History
Women Native Americans (s) have traditionally been leaders, healers, and artists throughout history. However, most history textbooks would have you believe otherwise. Only Pocahontas and Sacajawea are usually mentioned, and their stories are frequently relegated to the background of dominant white male narratives. It’s past time for such narratives to be questioned. Here are five Women Native Americans who, despite colonial violence and systemic racism, established a path for themselves and their communities, who are typically overlooked in historical texts. But let’s talk about the source of life first.
The Source Of Life
American Indian women have traditionally played an important role in their tribal communities. In fact, in most cases, the women were in charge of not only the more traditional matriarchal responsibilities within the tribe but also the collection of materials and then the construction of everyone’s homes. This is a remarkable feat, especially for women at the time. The males respected the women because they were the source of life and provided them with a sense of fortitude, balance, and harmony in their existence.
Men’s and women’s roles were equally important in Native civilizations and tribes for the operation, if not survival, of their society. As a result, both men and women were valued for performing well in their jobs. Women were adored for their crucial part in healing procedures and were regarded in high regard for their craft skills.
1. Susan La Flesche Picotte (1865-1915)
- Born: June 17, 1865, Omaha Reservation, United States
- Died: September 18, 1915, Walthill, Nebraska, United States
- Spouse: Henry Picotte (m. 1894–1905)
- Known for: First Indigenous woman to become a physician in the United States
- Children: Pierre Picotte, Caryl Picotte
Susan La Flesche, an Omaha tribal member, sat at the bedside of a sick woman for the entire night when she was only eight years old. The woman was dead by the time dawn broke, and the message from the doctor who never showed up was clear: Native Americans don’t matter.
La Flesche left her Omaha Indian Reservation home to pursue her M.D. at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, becoming the first Native American woman doctor in history. After that, La Flesche returned home and worked tirelessly to help her neighborhood.
She advocated for modern hygiene practices and disease prevention standards among the Omaha people, in addition to providing critical health care to her community. Picotte opened a hospital at Walthill, Nebraska, in 1913, the first to be erected on reserve property without federal assistance.
The center provided services to persons of all races and ethnicities. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1993 and is currently known as the Susan La Flesche Picotte Center.
Susan La Flesche Picotte Photos
Top 10 Susan La Flesche Picotte Quotes
| It was only an Indian and it did not matter. The doctor preferred hunting for prairie chickens rather than visiting poor, suffering humanity. |
| It is vital that every child in Nebraska, whether native, white, immigrant or offspring of former slave, be afforded an opportunity to learn. |
| I know I shall be unpopular for a while with my people, because they will misconstrue my efforts, but this is nothing, just so I can help them for their own good. |
| My office hours are any and all hours of the day and night. |
| We who are educated have to be pioneers of Indian civilization. The white people have reached a high standard of civilization, but how many years has it taken them? We are only beginning; so do not try to put us down, but help us climb higher. Give us a chance. |
| I’m not accomplishing miracles, but I’m beginning to see some of the results of better hygiene and health habits. And we’re losing fewer babies and fewer cases to infection. |
| This condition of being treated as children we want to have nothing to do with… the majority of the Omahas are as competent as the same number of white people. |
| The law protects the man who enriches himself through the foreclosures of mortgages, it does not protect the sacred right of the farmer to live a decent life and to earn a decent living. |
| Intemperance increased… men, women, and children drank; men and women died from alcoholism, and little children were seen reeling on the streets of the town; drunken brawls in which men were killed occurred, and no person’s life was considered safe. |
| From the outset the work of an Indian girl is plain before her. We who are educated have to pioneers of Indian civilization. We have to prepare our people to live in the white man’s way, to use the white man’s books, and to use his laws if you will only give them to us… the shores of success can only be reached by crossing the bridge of faith. |
2. Maria Tallchief (1925-2013)
- Born: January 24, 1925, Fairfax, Oklahoma, United States
- Died: April 11, 2013, Chicago, Illinois, United States
- Dances: Sugar Plum Fairy in Balanchine’s Nutcracker; Title character in Balanchine’s Firebird
- Spouse: Henry D. Paschen, Jr. (m. 1956–2004), Elmourza Natirboff (m. 1952–1954), George Balanchine (m. 1946–1951)
- Children: Elise Paschen
Maria Tallchief rose to fame as the prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet after being born in a village on an Osage tribe in Oklahoma. Tallchief suffered discrimination as a Native American ballerina in an almost all-white profession before originating roles in some of the world’s most well-known and adored ballets.
She applied to several ballet companies but was rejected down due to her Native American ethnicity. Many people even advised her to change her last name because it revealed her Native American heritage. Tallchief was always defiant.
In the end, she triumphed against everything. Tallchief was the first American ballerina to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet in France and the first American to perform at the world-renowned Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, in addition to being Balanchine’s muse and America’s first major prima ballerina (and America’s first Native American prima ballerina).
Tallchief was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts in 1996. She was also inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in the same year.
Maria Tallchief Photos
Top 10 Maria Tallchief Quotes
| What’s important is that I’m working with very talented young people. |
| A ballerina takes steps given to her and makes them her own. Each individual brings something different to the same role. |
| Above all, I wanted to be appreciated as a prima ballerina who happened to be a Native American, never as someone who was an American Indian ballerina. |
| If anything at all, perfection is not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. |
| Dance from your heart and love your music, the audience will love you in return. |
| To me there’s nothing more glorious than the human voice |
| I think it is an innate quality that Indians have to dance. They dance when they are happy, they dance when they are sad. They dance when they get married, they dance when someone dies. |
| I don’t mind being listed alphabetically. I do mind being treated alphabetically |
| A ballerina takes steps given to her and makes them her own. Each individual brings something different to the same role. |
| I think it is an innate quality that Indians have to dance. They dance when they are happy, they dance when they are sad. They dance when they get married, they dance when someone dies. |
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3. Sarah Winnemucca
Sarah Winnemucca, the daughter and granddaughter of Northern Paiute leaders, was born in 1844 in present-day Nevada and mastered English, Spanish, and three Indian dialects as a kid. Her abilities led to her working as an interpreter at Fort McDermitt and later on the Malheur Reservation in the 1870s.
Some Paiute were forcibly transported to the Yakima Reservation after the Bannock War of 1878, during which Winnemuccca shown her mettle by serving as an army scout and rescuing a group of Paiute, including her father. Winnemucca chose to push for Native American land rights and other structural improvements after witnessing how American Indians were at the mercy of often dishonest reservation agents.
Winnemuccca gave a speech in San Francisco in 1879. Winnemucca also became the first Native American woman to publish a book, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, the following year in Washington, D.C. She also visited with President Rutherford B. Hayes (1883). “For disgrace! For shame!” read one of the work’s forceful declarations.
You dare to scream “Liberty” while imprisoning us against our choice and dragging us from place to place like beasts.”
The US administration promised reforms, including the Paiute’s return to Malheur. However, nothing changed in the end. In 1891, Winnemucca passed away. Despite the obstacles she had faced, she was a strong champion for her people.
Sarah Winnemucca Photos
4. Sacagawea: The Woman Who Made Lewis and Clark a Success
Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian who was kidnapped by the Hidatsa when she was around 12 years old. Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian trader, eventually bought her and another hostage and married them.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark sought to use Sacagawea’s linguistic skills when Charbonneau was engaged as a translator for the Lewis and Clark Expedition (she could speak both Shoshone and Hidatsa).
Only two months after giving birth, Sacagawea embarked on the trip on April 7, 1805. She accompanied her son, Jean Baptiste, on the journey, where the presence of a mother and child was an undeniable asset because war parties did not take women and children with them, and the party was not perceived as a danger by the tribes they encountered.
Sacagawea also helped the expedition in other ways, such as saving navigational gear, supplies, and critical papers when a frantic Charbonneau nearly capsized a boat. She discovered medicinal and edible roots, herbs, and berries. The landmarks she remembered came in handy throughout their journey.
Sacagawea was not paid when the group returned to the Hidatsa-Mandan towns in 1806, while her husband received $500 and 320 acres of land. “[Y]our woman who accompanied you on that long dangerous and exhausting rout to the Pacific Ocian and back diserved a higher reward for her attention and services on that rout than we had in our ability to award her,” Clark wrote to Charbonneau in 1806.
Sacagawea died in 1812, only a few years after giving birth to a daughter named Lisette. Clark assumed care for Sacagawea’s children, demonstrating how much he valued her.
Sacagawea Photos
Best Sacagawea Quotes
| Amazing the things you find when you bother to search for them. |
| Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. |
| I was taken in the middle of the river as I was crossing at a shallow place to make my escape |
| Everything I do is for my people |
| I have traveled a long way with you to see the great waters of the pacific ocean, and that now that monstrous fish was also to be seen, I thought it very hard that I could not be permitted to see either |
5. Nanye-hi (Nancy Ward): Beloved Woman of the Cherokee
Nanye-hi was born in 1738 into the Cherokee Wolf clan. She stayed by her husband during a battle against the Creeks in 1755, biting lead for bullets to give his ammo deadly ridges.
Nanye-hi grabbed a rifle, encouraged her fellow warriors, and entered the combat herself when her husband was tragically shot. The Cherokee won the day with her on their side.
Nanye-hi was dubbed Ghighau (Beloved Woman) of the Cherokee as a result of her acts, a prominent position that included directing the Cherokee Women’s Council and sitting on the Cherokee Council of Chiefs.
Nanye-hi took part in treaty negotiations as well (to the surprise of male colonists when they were on the other side of the bargaining table).
As time passed, some Cherokee felt compelled to confront the Europeans who continued to encroach on their homeland. Nanye-hi, who understood the Cherokee couldn’t prevail against the numerous and well-supplied colonists, believed the two sides needed to learn to cooperate (she practiced coexistence herself, marrying an Englishman, Bryant Ward, in the late 1750s, which led to her being known as Nancy Ward).
“Our cry is all for peace; let it continue,” Nanye-hi proclaimed during a 1781 treaty conference. This tranquility must continue indefinitely.”
Nanye-desire hi’s for peace didn’t stop her from seeing the hazards of relinquishing Cherokee territory; in 1817, she tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Cherokees not to give up any more land.
She had spent years attempting to aid her people when she died in 1822.
Nanye-hi Photos
Conclusion
Thank you for spending time to check out our famous five Women Native American in history.
