Native American History
5 Influential Native American Women Who Influenced American History
Men alone did not make history. Women had their share in shaping it.
Native American history is fraught with difficulties, heart-wrenching events, bloodsheds, yet formidable feats. There have been women who stood side by side with men at all odds of life.
They undertook dangerous journeys, nursed and saved lives amid wars, fought bravely in the battles, and lead their tribes like an influential leader. They sparked hope in the breasts of thousands of their people when they receded to the darkness of ignorance and hopelessness.
They revived their lost courage with personal examples by performing daunting tasks that surprised many. Here are five influence Native American women who left their mark on history:
#1. Sacagawea: The women who guided Lewis and Clark
Born to a Shoshone chief in 1788 in Lemhi County, an enemy tribe kidnapped Sacagawea at the age of 12. She was sold to a French Canadian trapper, Toussaint Charbonneau, who took her as a wife.
When President Thomas Jefferson acquired Louisiana from France in 1803, he wanted to explore it to harness its resources. He commissioned Lewis and Clark Expedition to take the arduous journey from August 31, 1803, to September 25, 1806.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark met Charbonneau when they reached the upper Missouri River area. They hired him immediately as an interpreter to explore the lands more easily.
They also came to know of Sacagawea's linguistic knowledge that she can speak both Hidatsa and Shoshone. They took her along with them. She took her two-month-old son, Jean Baptiste, with her on that long journey. She proved to be an asset, as the tribes didn’t bother the company because of her knowledge of the area.
She helped the company by locating and recognizing the medicinal roots, provided them with berries and edible plants, and even saved important papers and navigational tools when her husband overturned a boat in the water. She also knew the area and the landmark very well and guided the expedition safely.
However, Sacagawea didn’t receive any payment on their return to their village in 1806. Her husband got $500 and a 320 acres of land. When Clark came to know of this, he expressed his grievance in his letter to Charbonneau:
“Your woman who accompanied you to that long dangerous and fatiguing rout to the Pacific Ocean and back deserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that rout than we had in our power to give her….”
When she died in 1812 after giving birth to her daughter, Lisette, Clark took responsibility for her children’s upbringing because she served the American cause.
#2. Nanye-hi: The war leader of the Cherokee People
Born in 1738, Nanye-hi lived a tough life. She fought alongside her husband against the Native Creek tribe.
When her husband was shot, she took his rifle and gathered her fellow fighters with a moving speech, and charged the battlefield with unknown ferocity. With her in the lead position, the Cherokee won a bloody war that day.
Her courage led her to rise to the status of political leader and a prominent figure in her tribe. She was given the much-cherished title of Ghighau (Beloved Woman), a title that has the responsibilities of leading women's council and attending the councils of Chiefs. To the utter surprise of colonists, she even played a prominent role in dealing with the colonists, by taking part in treaty talks.
Over time, Europeans continued to intrude in Cherokee land. Given the number and advancement in weaponry, Nanye-hi realized that war is destruction for the native people, so she stressed coexistence peacefully. In the late 1750s, she even married an English man, Bryan Ward, and through her marriage, she came to be known as Nancy Ward. She continued fulfilling her responsibilities of leading her people and 1781 at a conference; she voiced her belief in coexistence as the only solution to the problems and said;
“Our cry is all for peace; let it continue. This peace must last forever.”
She was an embodiment of peace and wished that the colonists and the Natives should learn to live peacefully. Still, she expressed her grievances about the advancement of the colonists by taking more Cherokee lands. However, throughout her life till her death in 1822, she educated her people to adopt the new changing world and to open up to advancement.
#3. Sarah Winnemucca: The intelligent warrior and Native rights advocate
Sarah was born to Northern Paiute chief in 1844 in present-day Nevada, she was taught English and Spanish from a very young age.
She also learned three more Indian dialects that added to her intelligence and persona. Due to her abilities, she served as an interpreter in the Malheur Reservation and at Fort McDermitt.
During the Bannock War of 1878, the strength of Winnemucca’s character revealed itself in its true colors. During the war, she worked as an Army scout, rescued her father, and other Paiutes who were driven to the Yakima Reservation.
She also worked as an interpreter where she learned about the corrupt nature of reservation agents that how they exploit the Natives, thus she advocated for Native American rights and raised her voice for improving legal systems that hinder the growth of these people.
Over time, fighting for the rights of Native Indians, she gave a remarkable lecture in San Francisco in 1879. The following year, she got an opportunity to meet President Rutherford B. Hayes (R-Ohio) to inform him of the Natives’ miserable life due to expansionism.
She also published a book called Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883) that distinguished her as the first Native American to have published a book in English. The book dealt with Piute's claims, rights, grievances, and aspirations. It also became an instrument of spreading her thoughts in intellectual and educated sections of society to mold their opinion. The famous statements of the book are:
“For shame! For shame! You dare to cry out Liberty, when you hold us in places against our will, driving us from place to place as if we were beasts.”
This compelled the U.S. government to initiate reforms regarding the lands of the Natives but nothing significant happened as the policy of driving them further to the west remained intact.
The great advocate of Natives’ rights, Winnemucca breathed her last in 1891. Despite the failures she met, she was the first influential voice among the natives who wished to uplift the overall living conditions of her people.
#4. Susan La Flesche: the physician
The first Native American doctor and social reformer, Susan was born on 17 June 1865 on the Omaha reservation where she spent much of her youth.
She was born to an educated father who shaped much of her thoughts about education. But her journey to become a doctor was inspired by an incident when a white doctor refused to treat an ailing native woman.
She was a child when she encountered this racist incident and took it to heart to become a doctor one day to help her people. Her passion and responsibility led her to become the first-ever Native American doctor by earning a medical degree from Hampton Institute Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Upon finishing her internship, she returned to the Omaha reservation where she nursed 1300 patients with ailments of tuberculosis, influenza, and diphtheria. She retired from her position in 1894 but continued to see patients in a private capacity as a medical missionary.
In 1894 she met Henry Picotte and married him. They had two sons: Caryl and Pierre. Contrary to the Victorian expectation of women, she remained a practicing physician and didn’t accept staying in the house to be dependent on her husband. She fought against alcoholism as her husband too was alcoholic.
Later on, she was even politically involved in the matters of land allotment for the Natives. The Natives were seen as not capable of holding land. Thus she acquired the role of a leader to defend the cause of her people to get land allotment rights.
She was very critical of the notion that the Whites are superior to the Indians. She expressed her views in her speech during her Hampton graduation speech:
“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 to climb higher. Give us a chance.”
In her struggles to secure the Omaha’s rights to control their lands, she led a delegation to Washington D.C.; she said that “the majority of the Omaha are as competent as the same number of white people.” Her struggles paid off that resulted in Omaha being granted the right to control their lands.
However, she didn’t let her primary purpose of life of helping humanity slipped off her sight and continued to cure people with various diseases. She also raised funds to build Walthill Hospital in 1913 that came to be known as the Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital after her death in 1915.
#5. Lozen: A gifted warrior of the Apache tribe
Lozen Apache was born in 1840 in Apache Tribe. She was a fierce and intelligent warrior. She was the sister of the Apache chief, Victorio, who was the leader of the Warm Springs Apache.
They were forced to live on San Carlos Reservation; however, they successfully escaped in 1877. Among his band, Victorio’s young sister, Lozen also evaded both U.S. and Mexican armies to reach a safer place.
In that Victorian society, riding for a woman was unusual. Yet she was an excellent rider and a significant part of the band. She was a skilled warrior, rider, and, according to legends, she would prophetically recognize the direction of an enemy.
She could tell through her special prophetic visions that how far or close an enemy was. According to James Kaywaykla, Victorio once introduced her to Nana in the following words;
“Lozen is my right hand… strong as a man, braver than most, and cunning in strategy. Lozen is a shield to her people.”
They were on the run from both U.S. and Mexican soldiers. But Mexican soldiers found them in 1880 and killed many of Victorio’s men. Fortunately, Lozen was out helping a pregnant woman in her delivery and she was saved. However, legends say that, had she been there, Lozen could have saved her brother’s followers.
Later on, she joined Geronimo and his band and proved to be an asset. During a battle, at one point, Geronimo ran out of ammunition and was badly surrounded. He sent Lozen with Dahteste, another female warrior, to negotiate peace with U.S. authorities.
The negotiations resulted in Geronimo’s surrender. She was also imprisoned with them in Florida in 1886. Over time, she was shifted to Alabama’s Mount Vernon Barracks, where she developed symptoms of tuberculosis and died in 1889 in prison.
She was buried in an unknown grave. However, her stories of bravery and ferociousness lived on in the memories of the Apache people. They hailed her as their heroine and honored her in their songs as a prominent figure.
Women were looked upon and considered emotionally and physically inferior throughout history in all cultures and nations. But there were women in history, who proved all these social constructs as fallacious conspiracy to keep women under check. These women, no matter to which nation or country they belonged, made their own history.
