There have been many influential cultural leaders throughout the history of the world. These leaders worked to change and improve society for those without a voice of their own. Minorities often suffer miserable conditions until someone takes a stand to demand change. In the United States, Native Americans are treated as second-class citizens who don’t have the equality that all persons in this country should have. Many well known Native Americans have worked to achieve better education, healthcare, housing, and jobs for their people. One of the few women in this group, Wilma Mankiller, made many important accomplishments in modern Native American society. As a member of the Cherokee tribe, Mankiller overcame many obstacles to become the first female Deputy Chief, as well as the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Wilma Mankiller has become one of the most important leaders in Native American history as well as an influential advocate for women's rights.
Wilma Mankiller was born in 1945 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma where she lived with her father Charlie, a full-blooded Cherokee, her mother Irene, of mixed Irish and Dutch ancestry, as well as her four sisters and six brothers. Their surname is a traditional Cherokee military rank. Wilma was a fifth generation Mankiller, with ancestry traced back to the Cherokee forced to move west along the Trail of Tears (Mankiller 3-4). She grew up in Oklahoma on land granted to her family by the federal government. In 1956, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a federal agency responsible for the land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans, relocated her family to San Francisco with their consent (Mankiller 60). Her family’s relocation by the government had a great affect...
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...anges, as well as strong leadership, it is possible to make many influential changes to help improve the lives of a culture.
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“Tracing a single Native American family from the 1780’s through the 1920’s posed a number of challenges,” for Claudio Saunt, author of Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family. (pg. 217) A family tree is comprised of genealogical data that has many branches that take form by twisting, turning, and attempting to accurately represent descendants from the oldest to the youngest. “The Grayson family of the Creek Nation traces its origins to the late 1700’s, when Robert Grierson, a Scotsman, and Sinnugee, a Creek woman, settled down together in what is now north-central Alabama. Today, their descendants number in the thousands and have scores of surnames.” (pg. 3)
Owen, Narcissa, and Karen L. Kilcup. A Cherokee woman's America memoirs of Narcissa Owen, 1831-1907. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.
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“Quantie’s weak body shuddered from a blast of cold wind. Still, the proud wife of the Cherokee chief John Ross wrapped a woolen blanket around her shoulders and grabbed the reins.” Leading the final group of Cherokee Indians from their home lands, Chief John Ross thought of an old story that was told by the chiefs before him, of a place where the earth and sky met in the west, this was the place where death awaits. He could not help but fear that this place of death was where his beloved people were being taken after years of persecution and injustice at the hands of white Americans, the proud Indian people were being forced to vacate their lands, leaving behind their homes, businesses and almost everything they owned while traveling to an unknown place and an uncertain future. The Cherokee Indians suffered terrible indignities, sickness and death while being removed to the Indian territories west of the Mississippi, even though they maintained their culture and traditions, rebuilt their numbers and improved their living conditions by developing their own government, economy and social structure, they were never able to return to their previous greatness or escape the injustices of the American people.
Kugel, Rebecca, and Lucy Eldersveld Murphy. Native women's history in eastern North America before 1900: a guide to research and writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
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