List of Native Americans of the United States
Encyclopedia
This is a list of notable Native Americans from peoples indigenous to the contemporary United States, including Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians
, and Native Americans in the United States
.
Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii.According to the U.S...
, and Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
.
A
- Nicolas de AguilarNicolas de AguilarNicolas de Aguilar a Mestizo, was a Spanish official in New Mexico. He was tried for heresy and found guilty by the Inquisition.-Early life:...
, P'urhépechaP'urhépechaThe P'urhépecha, normally spelled Purépecha in Spanish and in English and traditionally referred to as Tarascans, are an indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of the Mexican state of Michoacán, principally in the area of the cities of Uruapan and Pátzcuaro...
, New Mexican official, tried by the Inquisition. - AiAi (poet)Florence Anthony was a National Book Award winning American poet and educator who legally changed her name to Ai Ogawa...
, ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
, ChickasawChickasawThe Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
, Southern Cheyenne, and ComancheComancheThe Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
poet - Richard AitsonRichard AitsonRichard Aitson is a Kiowa-Kiowa Apache bead artist, curator, and poet from Oklahoma.-Background:Richard Aitson was born on December 26, 1953 in Anadarko, Oklahoma. His mother was the Kiowa traditionalist Alecia Keahbone Gonzales , who taught the Kiowa language at the University of Science and Arts...
, KiowaKiowaThe Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
-Kiowa Apache bead artist and poet - Sherman AlexieSherman AlexieSherman Joseph Alexie, Jr. is a writer, poet, filmmaker, and occasional comedian. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a Native American. Two of Alexie's best known works are The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven , a book of short stories and Smoke Signals, a film...
, (SpokaneSpokaneSpokane is a city in the U.S. state of Washington.Spokane may also refer to:*Spokane *Spokane River*Spokane, Missouri*Spokane Valley, Washington*Spokane County, Washington*Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War*Spokane * USS Spokane...
, Coeur d'AleneCoeur d'Alene TribeThe Coeur d'Alene are a Native American people who lived in villages along the Coeur d'Alene, St. Joe, Clark Fork and Spokane Rivers; as well as sites on the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene, Lake Pend Oreille and Hayden Lake, in what is now northern Idaho, eastern Washington and western Montana.In...
) author and comedian - Elsie AllenElsie AllenElsie Allen was a Native American Pomo basket weaver from the Cloverdale Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California in Northern California, significant as for historically categorizing and teaching Californian Indian basket patterns and techniques and sustaining traditional Pomo basketry as an art...
, Cloverdale Pomo basketweaver - Paula Gunn AllenPaula Gunn AllenPaula Gunn Allen was a Native American poet, literary critic, lesbian activist, and novelist.Born Paula Marie Francis in Albuquerque, Allen grew up in Cubero, New Mexico, a Spanish-Mexican land grant village bordering the Laguna Pueblo reservation...
, (Laguna PuebloLaguna PuebloLaguna is a Native American tribe of the Pueblo people in west-central New Mexico, USA. The name, Laguna, is Spanish and derives from the lake located on their reservation. The real Keresan name of the tribe is Kawaik. The population of the tribe exceeds 7,000 , making it the largest Keresan...
, SiouxSiouxThe Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
) poet, literary critic, activist, and novelist - Marcus AmermanMarcus AmermanMarcus Amerman is an award-winning Choctaw bead artist, glass artist, painter, fashion designer, and performance artist, living north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is known for his highly realistic beadwork portraits.-Background:...
, ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
multimedia artist - Bill AnoatubbyBill AnoatubbyBill Anoatubby is the present Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, a position he has held since 1987. From 1979 to 1987, Anoatubby served two terms as Lieutenant Governor in the administration of Gov. Overton James[-Early life:...
, (ChickasawChickasawThe Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
), Governor of the Chicksaw Nation since 1987 - Annie AntoneAnnie AntoneAnnie Antone is a Native American Tohono O'odham basket weaver from Gila Bend, Arizona-Background:Annie Antone was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1955. She learned how to weave baskets from her mother, Irene Antone. Annie began at the age of 19 and sold her first basket for $10. She gave the money to...
, Tohono O'odhamTohono O'odhamThe Tohono O'odham are a group of Native American people who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico...
basketweaver - William ApessWilliam Apessthumb|250px|William Apess' autobiographyWilliam Apess was a Native American writer, preacher, and politician of the Pequot tribe.-Early life:...
, (PequotPequotPequot people are a tribe of Native Americans who, in the 17th century, inhabited much of what is now Connecticut. They were of the Algonquian language family. The Pequot War and Mystic massacre reduced the Pequot's sociopolitical influence in southern New England...
) author and minister - Anna Mae AquashAnna Mae AquashAnna Mae Aquash was a Mi'kmaq activist from Nova Scotia, Canada who became the highest-ranking woman in the American Indian Movement in the United States during the mid-1970s.Aquash...
, (Mi'kmaq) - Spencer AsahSpencer AsahSpencer Asah was a Kiowa painter, one of the Kiowa Five, from Oklahoma.-Early life:Spencer Asah was born around 1905 in Carnegie, Oklahoma. His Kiowa name was Lallo . His father was a buffalo medicine man. His father provided Asah extensive cultural information that he later used in his art.Asah...
, KiowaKiowaThe Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
artist - Attakullakulla, (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) chief - James AuchiahJames AuchiahJames Auchiah was a Kiowa painter, one of the Kiowa Five, from Oklahoma.-Early life:James Auchiah was born in on 17 November 1906 in Oklahoma Territory, near present day Meers and Medicine Park, Oklahoma...
, KiowaKiowaThe Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
artist - Marilou AwiaktaMarilou AwiaktaMarilou Awiakta is an Eastern Band Cherokee author.She is renowned for writing several books that blend stories, essays and poetry. She graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1958 receiving a B.A. magna cum laude, in both English and French. She worked as a civilian liaison officer and...
, (Eastern Band Cherokee) author and poet
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- Jimmy Santiago BacaJimmy Santiago BacaJimmy Santiago Baca of Apache and Chicano descent is an American poet and writer.- Life and career :...
, ApacheApacheApache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
-ChicanoChicanoThe terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
author and poet - Dennis BanksDennis BanksDennis Banks , a Native American leader, teacher, lecturer, activist and author, is an Anishinaabe born on Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. Banks is also known as Nowa Cumig...
, AnishinaabeAnishinaabeAnishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
activist, teacher, lecturer, author and co-founder of the American Indian MovementAmerican Indian MovementThe American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty... - Jim BarnesJim Barnes (writer)Jim Weaver McKown Barnes is a Native American author born near Summerfield, Oklahoma and is of Choctaw and Welsh heritage. He received his BA from Southeastern State College in Durant, OK in 1964 and his MA and Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas...
, ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
editor, author, poet and founder of the Chariton Review Press - Fred BegayFred BegayFred Begay , aka Fred Young or Clever Fox, is a Native American nuclear physicist. Begay was born in 1932 at Towaoc on the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation in Colorado. His mother was Navajo and Ute and his father was Navajo. As a youth, Begay was trained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to become a...
(DinéNavajo peopleThe Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
), nuclear physicist - Notah Begay IIINotah Begay IIINotah Ryan Begay III is an American professional golfer. He is the only full-blooded American Indian golfer on the PGA Tour. He is currently an analyst with the Golf Channel.-Amateur career:...
, DinéDine-People named Dine:* Jim Dine , an American pop artist* S. S. Van Dine, an art critic and author* Tom Dine, an American government worker-Other meanings:* Beit ed-Dine, a town in Lebanon* Diné, name for the Navajo Nation in the Navajo language...
PGA Tour golfer - Betty Louise BellBetty Louise BellBetty Louise Bell was born on November 23, 1949. She is a scholar and fiction writer of Cherokee ancestry. Bell is director of the Native American Studies Program and assistant professor of American culture, English, and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor...
, (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) author and editor - Clyde BellecourtClyde BellecourtClyde Howard Bellecourt is a White Earth Ojibwe civil rights organizer noted for co-founding the American Indian Movement in 1968 with Dennis Banks, Herb Powless, and Eddie Benton Banai, among others. His older brother, the late Vernon Bellecourt, was also active...
(AnishinaabeAnishinaabeAnishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
), activist and co-founder of the American Indian MovementAmerican Indian MovementThe American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
(AIM) - Rebecca M. Benally, Navajo NationNavajo NationThe Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering , occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico...
Board of Education President and educator - Johnny BenchJohnny BenchJohnny Lee Bench is a former professional baseball catcher who played in the Major Leagues for the Cincinnati Reds from 1967 to 1983 and is a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame...
, ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
Hall of Fame Catcher - Chief BenderChief BenderCharles Albert "Chief" Bender was a pitcher in Major League Baseball during the first two decades of the 20th century...
, OjibwaOjibwaThe Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...
Hall of Fame pitcher - Diane E. BensonDiane E. BensonDiane E. Benson is an Alaskan politician, inspirational speaker, video production consultant, published writer and dramatist. In August 2010, she became the Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor for the state of Alaska, easily outpacing three other opponents in the Democratic primary on August...
-- (Tlingit) politician, inspirational speaker, poet and author - George BentGeorge BentGeorge Bent was the mixed-race son of the fur trader William Bent, the founder of the trading post named Bent's Fort; and Owl Woman, a Cheyenne. Born near present-day La Junta, Colorado, Bent served as a Confederate soldier during the American Civil War and a Cheyenne warrior...
, CheyenneCheyenneCheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
, soldier, warrior, interpreter, and cultural informant - Martha BerryMartha Berry (artist)Martha Berry is a Cherokee beadwork artist, who has been highly influential in reviving traditional Cherokee and Southeastern beadwork, particularly techniques from the pre-Removal period.-Background:...
, Cherokee NationCherokee NationThe Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
bead artist - Chuck BillyChuck Billy (vocalist)Chuck Billy is an American vocalist, who is best known as the vocalist for the thrash metal band Testament.-Testament:Chuck Billy replaced Steve "Zetro" Souza, future Exodus vocalist, in the mid-1980s when the band was still called Legacy. Following his arrival, Testament released their first...
, (PomoPomo peopleThe Pomo people are an indigenous peoples of California. The historic Pomo territory in northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point...
) singer for the thrash metal band, Testament - Lisa Johnson BillyLisa Johnson BillyLisa Johnson Billy has represented Oklahoma House of Representatives District 42, which includes Cleveland, Garvin, Grady and McClain counties since 2004. She serves as Deputy Whip and Vice Chair of the Republican Caucus.-Biography:...
, Chickasaw NationChickasaw NationThe Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized Native American nation, located in Oklahoma. They are one of the members of the Five Civilized Tribes. The Five Civilized Tribes were differentiated from other Indian reservations in that they had semi-autonomous constitutional governments and...
- Oklahoma State Legislator and Chickasaw Tribal Legislator - Sherwin BitsuiSherwin BitsuiSherwin Bitsui is originally from Baaʼoogeedí , on the Navajo Nation. Currently, he lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is Navajo of the Todichʼíiʼnii , born for the Tłʼízíłání ....
-- (NavajoNavajo peopleThe Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
) poet - Black ElkBlack ElkHeȟáka Sápa was a famous Wičháša Wakȟáŋ of the Oglala Lakota . He was Heyoka and a second cousin of Crazy Horse.-Life:...
-- (Oglala LakotaOglala LakotaThe Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
) holy man - Wallace Black Elk
- Black HawkBlack Hawk (chief)Black Hawk was a leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the United States. Although he had inherited an important historic medicine bundle, he was not one of the Sauk's hereditary civil chiefs...
-- (SaukSac (tribe)The Sacs or Sauks are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture group. Their autonym is The Sacs or Sauks are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture group. Their autonym is The Sacs or Sauks are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture...
) Leader - Black KettleBlack KettleChief Black Kettle was a leader of the Southern Cheyenne after 1854, who led efforts to resist American settlement from Kansas and Colorado territories. He was a peacemaker who accepted treaties to protect his people. He survived the Third Colorado Cavalry's Sand Creek Massacre on the Cheyenne...
-- (CheyenneCheyenneCheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
) chief - Andrew BlackbirdAndrew BlackbirdAndrew Jackson Blackbird was an "Odawa" Ottawa tribe leader and historian. He was author of the 1887 book, History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan.-Early life:...
-- (OttawaOttawa (tribe)The Odawa or Ottawa, said to mean "traders," are a Native American and First Nations people. They are one of the Anishinaabeg, related to but distinct from the Ojibwe nation. Their original homelands are located on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, on the Bruce Peninsula in...
) leader, historian, and author - Kimberly M. BlaeserKimberly M. BlaeserKimberly Blaeser is a Native American writer of mixed German and Anishinaabe descent. She is an enrolled tribal member, and grew up on the White Earth reservation....
-- (Chippewa, AnishinaabeAnishinaabeAnishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
) author and poet - Elias BoudinotElias Boudinot (Cherokee)Elias Boudinot , was a member of an important Cherokee family in present-day Georgia. They believed that rapid acculturation was critical to Cherokee survival. In 1828 Boudinot became the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, which was published in Cherokee and English...
-- (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) leader, journalist and publisher - Billy BowlegsBilly BowlegsthumbChief Billy Bowlegs or Billy Bolek was a leader of the Seminoles in Florida during the Second and Third Seminole Wars against the United States...
, SeminoleSeminoleThe Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
chief - Joseph BrantJoseph BrantThayendanegea or Joseph Brant was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York, who was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. He was perhaps the most well-known American Indian of his generation...
-- (MohawkMohawk nationMohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...
) leader - Mary Brave Bird, Brulé Lakota author and activist
- Ignatia BrokerIgnatia BrokerIgnatia Broker was an Ojibway writer and community leader from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is best known for the novel Night Flying Woman, published in 1983, which tells the story of Broker's great-great-grandmother and her family's life before and after contact with white explorers.-External...
-- (Ojibway) author - Joseph BruchacJoseph BruchacJoseph Bruchac is a writer of books relating to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a particular focus on northeastern Native American and Anglo-American lives and folklore. He has published works of poetry, novels, and short stories. He is from Saratoga Springs, New York, and is of...
-- (Abenaki) author and poet - Buffalo Bird WomanBuffalo Bird WomanBuffalo Bird Woman was a Mandan ]Hidatsa who experienced the traditional life of her people in what is now the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Her Hidatsa name was Maxidiwiac. She learned and practiced traditional Hidatsa skills such as gardening, the preparation of food, weaving and...
-- (HidatsaHidatsaThe Hidatsa are a Siouan people, a part of the Three Affiliated Tribes. The Hidatsa's autonym is Hiraacá. According to the tribal tradition, the word hiraacá derives from the word "willow"; however, the etymology is not transparent and the similarity to mirahací ‘willows’ inconclusive...
) writer
C
- Gregory CajeteGregory CajeteDr. Gregory A. Cajete is a Tewa author and professor from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. He has pioneered reconciling indigenous perspectives in sciences with a Western academic setting...
(Santa Clara Pueblo), ethnobotanist, author, and educator - Ben Nighthorse CampbellBen Nighthorse CampbellBenjamin Nighthorse Campbell is an American politician. He was a U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1993 until 2005 and was during his tenure the only American Indian serving in the U.S. Congress. Campbell was a three term U.S. Representative from 1987 to 1993, when he was sworn into office as a...
, Northern CheyenneCheyenneCheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
chief, U.S. RepresentativeUnited States House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, U.S. SenatorUnited States SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, and silversmith - Mary Katherine CampbellMary Katherine CampbellMary Katherine Campbell was the only person to win the Miss America pageant twice. Campbell was Miss America 1922 and Miss America 1923, and she was also First Runner Up at the 1924 Miss America Pageant...
, Muscogee Creek, CreeCreeThe Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
, Mi'kmaq- former Miss AmericaMiss AmericaThe Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
winner - CanonicusCanonicusCanonicus was a Native American chief of the Narragansett. He was a firm friend of English settlers.-Biography:...
, NarragansettNarragansett (tribe)The Narragansett tribe are an Algonquian Native American tribe from Rhode Island. In 1983 they regained federal recognition as the Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island. In 2009, the United States Supreme Court ruled against their request that the Department of Interior take land into trust...
chief - Rob CapricciosoRob CapricciosoRob Capriccioso is the Washington D.C. Bureau Chief for Indian Country Today Media Network. An enrolled citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, he covers the White House, the United States Congress, the Supreme Court of the United States, and...
, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, journalist and writer - Captain Jack, Modoc chief
- Gladys CardiffGladys CardiffGladys Cardiff is a poet and academic, with interests in Native American, African American and American literature. She is an associate professor at Oakland University....
, writer and poet of Eastern CherokeeEastern Band of Cherokee IndiansThe Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians , is a federally recognized Native American tribe in the United States of America, who are descended from Cherokee who remained in the Eastern United States while others moved, or were forced to relocate, to the west in the 19th century. The history of the...
descent - Lorna Dee CervantesLorna Dee CervantesLorna Dee Cervantes is an award-winning Chicana-Native American poet who is considered one of the major Chicana poets of the past 40 years. She has been described by Alurista, as "probably the best Chicana poet active today." Lorna Dee Cervantes was born in 1954 in California. She grew up in San...
, ChicanaChicanoThe terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
writer and poet - Chainbreaker, SenecaSeneca nationThe Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...
) war chief - Joba ChamberlainJoba ChamberlainJustin Louis "Joba" Chamberlain is a Major League Baseball pitcher for the New York Yankees.-Early life:Chamberlain was born and grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. Chamberlain's parents, Harlan Chamberlain and Jackie Standley, were never married and split up when Joba was 18 months old...
, Ho-ChunkHo-ChunkThe Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....
pitcher for the New York YankeesNew York YankeesThe New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division... - Nathan Lee Chasing His HorseNathan Lee Chasing His HorseNathan Lee Chasing His Horse is an American actor. He is a member of the Rosebud Lakota Sioux Nation, the son of Chief Joseph Chasing Horse and Winifred Chasing Horse....
, (Lakota) medicine man, actor - Chris ChavisChris ChavisChristopher "Chris" Chavis , is a Native American professional wrestler best known for his work with World Wrestling Entertainment as Tatanka from 1991 to 1996 and from 2005 to 2007...
, (LumbeeLumbeeThe Lumbee belong to a state recognized Native American tribe in North Carolina. The Lumbee are concentrated in Robeson County and named for the primary waterway traversing the county...
) professional wrestler - Kelly ChurchKelly ChurchKelly Jean Church is an award-winning black ash basket weaver, Woodlands Style painter, birch bark biter, and educator, enrolled in the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.-Background:...
, (Grand Traverse Band Odawa-OjibweGrand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa IndiansThe Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians is a federally recognized Native American tribe in Michigan. Derek Bailey is the current chairman of the Tribal Council, whose offices are in Peshawbestown, Michigan...
) basketweaver, painter, and educator - ChrystosChrystosChrystos is a Menominee rights activist and poet. Prior to being published, she worked as a home caretaker, and an activist for Turtle Mountain Band of Chipewa, Norma Jean Croy , and Leonard Peltier....
-- (MenomineeMenomineeSome placenames use other spellings, see also Menomonee and Menomonie.The Menominee are a nation of Native Americans living in Wisconsin. The Menominee, along with the Ho-Chunk, are the only tribes that are indigenous to what is now Wisconsin...
) activist and poet - CochiseCochiseCochise was a chief of the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache and the leader of an uprising that began in 1861. Cochise County, Arizona is named after him.-Biography:...
, Chiricahua Apache chief - Radmilla CodyRadmilla CodyRadmilla A. Cody is a Navajo model, award-winning singer, and anti-domestic violence activist who was the 46th Miss Navajo from 1997 to 1998.As she was the first and thus far only Miss Navajo partially of African-American heritage, her nomination sparked considerable debate over Navajo identity...
, (NavajoNavajo peopleThe Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
) - Holmes ColbertHolmes ColbertHolmes Colbert was a Native American leader of the Chickasaw Nation in what would become Oklahoma. Colbert wrote the Chickasaw Nation's constitution in the 1850s.-Early life and education:...
-- (ChickasawChickasawThe Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
) government official - Tom ColeTom ColeThomas Jeffery Cole is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party. He is a Deputy Minority Whip. The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee from 2006 to 2008, he was, during his tenure, the fourth-ranking Republican leader in the...
, ChickasawChickasawThe Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
Congressman from Oklahoma - Robert J. ConleyRobert J. ConleyRobert J. Conley is a Cherokee author and enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, a federally recognized tribe of American Indians. In 2007, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.Conley was born in Cushing, Oklahoma and...
,- Cherokee NationCherokee NationThe Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
-United Keetoowah Band author - Elizabeth Cook-LynnElizabeth Cook-LynnElizabeth Cook-Lynn is a Crow Creek Lakota Sioux editor, essayist, poet, novelist, and academic, whose trenchant views on Native American politics, particularly tribal sovereignty, have caused controversy....
, Crow Creek Sioux author, poet, editor, and co-founder of the Wicazo Sa ReviewWicazo sa reviewThe Wíčazo Ša Review is a bi-annual interdisciplinary journal of Native American Studies. Dedicated to the mission of assisting Indigenous peoples across the Americas, the Wíčazo Ša Review compiles inquiries into the Indigenous past and its integral relationship to the present... - Polly CooperPolly CooperPolly Cooper was an Oneida woman who took part in an expedition to aid the Continental army during the American Revolution at Valley Forge in the winter campaign of 1777-78.-At Valley Forge:...
, Oneida TribeOneida tribeThe Oneida are a Native American/First Nations people and are one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois Confederacy in the area of upstate New York...
aid to the Continental ArmyContinental ArmyThe Continental Army was formed after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the colonies that became the United States of America. Established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, it was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Thirteen Colonies in...
during the American RevolutionAmerican RevolutionThe American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
at Valley ForgeValley ForgeValley Forge in Pennsylvania was the site of the military camp of the American Continental Army over the winter of 1777–1778 in the American Revolutionary War.-History:... - CornplanterCornplanterGaiänt'wakê was a Seneca war-chief. He was the son of a Seneca mother, Aliquipiso, and a Dutch father, Johannes Abeel. He also carried the name John Abeel after his fur trader father...
-- (SenecaSeneca nationThe Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...
) chief - Jesse CornplanterJesse CornplanterJesse J. Cornplanter was a Seneca artist and author. His Seneca name was Hayonhwonhish. As an author he wrote Legends of the Longhouse, which records many Iroquois traditional stories.-Personal:...
-- (SenecaSeneca nationThe Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...
) author and artist - Leonard Crow DogLeonard Crow DogLeonard Crow Dog is a Sicangu Lakota medicine man and spiritual leader who became well-known during the takeover of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1973 known as the Wounded Knee Incident. Through his writings and teachings he has sought to unify...
- Amanda CroweAmanda CroweAmanda Crowe was an Eastern Band Cherokee woodcarver and educator from Cherokee, North Carolina.-Early life:Amanda Crowe was born on 16 July 1928 in the Qualla Boundary, North Carolina. By the age of four, she had decided to become an artist. Of her children, Amanda said: "Every spare minute was...
, Eastern Band Cherokee woodcarver and educator - Crazy HorseCrazy HorseCrazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S...
-- (Oglala LakotaOglala LakotaThe Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
) chief - Pierre CruzattePierre CruzattePrivate Pierre Cruzatte was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He was of French and Omaha tribe Indian heritage. He enlisted with Lewis and Clark on May 16, 1804, at St. Charles, Missouri. Cruzatte had formerly been a trader on the Missouri River for the Chouteau fur interests...
-- (Omaha) member of the Lewis and Clark ExpeditionLewis and Clark ExpeditionThe Lewis and Clark Expedition, or ″Corps of Discovery Expedition" was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William...
. - Rod CurlRod CurlRodney Curl is an American professional golfer best known for being the first full-blooded Native American to win a PGA Tour event....
, (WintuWintuThe Wintu are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun . Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin...
) PGA tour golfer - Charles CurtisCharles CurtisCharles Curtis was a United States Representative, a longtime United States Senator from Kansas later chosen as Senate Majority Leader by his Republican colleagues, and the 31st Vice President of the United States...
, (KawKaw (tribe)The Kaw Nation are an American Indian people of the central Midwestern United States. The tribe known as Kaw have also been known as the "People of the South wind", "People of water", Kansa, Kaza, Kosa, and Kasa. Their tribal language is Kansa, classified as a Siouan language.The toponym "Kansas"...
, OsageOsage NationThe Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
, PotawatomiPotawatomiThe Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. In the Potawatomi language, they generally call themselves Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and that was applied...
) U.S. SenatorUnited States SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
and 31st Vice President of the United StatesVice President of the United StatesThe Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term... - David CusickDavid CusickDavid Cusick was Tuscarora artist and the author of David Cusick’s Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations . This is an early account of Native American history and myth, written and published in English by an Indian.-Biography:David Cusick was born around 1780, probably on the Oneida...
, TuscaroraTuscarora (tribe)The Tuscarora are a Native American people of the Iroquoian-language family, with members in New York, Canada, and North Carolina...
illustrator and author, ca.1780-ca.1831 - Dennis CusickDennis CusickDennis Cusick was a Tuscarora painter from New York and one of the founders of the Iroquois Realist Style of painting.-Biography:...
, TuscaroraTuscarora (tribe)The Tuscarora are a Native American people of the Iroquoian-language family, with members in New York, Canada, and North Carolina...
painter, ca. 1800-1824
D
- Nora Marks DauenhauerNora Marks DauenhauerNora Marks Dauenhauer is an American poet and short-story writer and a scholar of the language and traditions of the Tlingit aboriginal nation in Alaska, of which she is a member...
-- (Tlingit) author and poet - Brent Michael DavidsBrent Michael DavidsBrent Michael Davids is an American composer and flautist. He is a member of the Stockbridge Mohican nation of American Indians. He has composed for Zeitgeist, the Kronos Quartet, Joffrey Ballet, the National Symphony Orchestra, and Chanticleer.He holds a B.M...
-- (Stockbridge MohicanMahicanThe Mahican are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe, originally settling in the Hudson River Valley . After 1680, many moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. During the early 1820s and 1830s, most of the Mahican descendants migrated westward to northeastern Wisconsin...
) composer and flutist - Susan Deer CloudSusan Deer CloudSusan Deer Cloud is a Métis poet and fiction writer of Blackfoot, Mohawk and Seneca heritage.- Biography :Deer Cloud was born to Joseph R. Hauptfleisch and Dorothea Mae Lare in Livingston Manor, New York, and grew up in the Catskills. She received her B.A. in General Literature and Creative Writing...
-- (BlackfootBlackfootThe Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
, SenecaSeneca nationThe Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...
, MohawkMohawk nationMohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...
) author and poet - Deganawida, (Haudenosaunee), founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, more respectfully called The Great PeacemakerThe Great PeacemakerThe Great Peacemaker, sometimes referred to as Deganawida or Dekanawida was, along with Hiawatha, by tradition the founder of the Haudenosaunee, commonly called the Iroquois Confederacy, a political and cultural union of several Native American tribes residing...
- Delaware Prophet -- (Lenni LenapeLenapeThe Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
) religious leader - Ella Cara DeloriaElla Cara DeloriaElla Cara Deloria , also called Ąnpétu Wašté Wįn , was an educator, anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and novelist of Yankton Sioux background...
-- (Yankton Sioux) educator, anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and novelist - Vine Deloria, Jr.Vine Deloria, Jr.Vine Deloria, Jr. was an American Indian author, theologian, historian, and activist. He was widely known for his book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto , which helped generate national attention to Native American issues in the same year as the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement...
, Yankton-Standing Rock Sioux theologian, historian, writer and activist - Micky DolenzMicky DolenzGeorge Michael "Micky" Dolenz, Jr. is an American actor, musician, television director, radio personality and theater director, best known as a member of the 1960s made-for-television band The Monkees.-Biography:...
, actor/musician - Michael DorrisMichael DorrisMichael Anthony Dorris was a prominent American novelist and scholar. During his career he presented himself as Native American and this identity was a key part of his professional activities and his public reputation; but its factuality is in doubt...
, Modoc writer - Dragging CanoeDragging CanoeTsiyu Gansini , "He is dragging his canoe", known to whites as Dragging Canoe, was a Cherokee war chief who led a band of Cherokee against colonists and United States settlers...
, CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
war chief - Frank DufinaFrank DufinaFrank Dufina was an early American golf professional. He began his career in 1898 at the just-opened Wawashkamo Golf Club on Mackinac Island, Michigan, where he became the club professional. He was a member of the Mackinac Band of Chippewa Indians and was the first Native American to play golf...
(Mackinac Band of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians), professional golfer
E
- Charles EastmanCharles EastmanCharles Alexander Eastman was a Native American physician, writer, national lecturer, and reformer. He was of Santee Sioux and Anglo-American ancestry...
-- (SiouxSiouxThe Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
) author, physician and helped found the Boy Scouts of America. - Larry EchoHawkLarry EchoHawkLarry EchoHawk is an attorney and legal scholar. On May 20, 2009, EchoHawk joined the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama as the head of the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. He served as Attorney General of Idaho from 1991 to 1995.-Biography:EchoHawk was raised in Farmington, New...
, Pawnee head of the BIA, former Attorney General of Idaho - Jacoby EllsburyJacoby EllsburyJacoby McCabe Ellsbury ; born September 11, 1983) is an American professional baseball center fielder with the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball....
(NavajoNavajo peopleThe Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
), outfielder for the Boston Red SoxBoston Red SoxThe Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"... - Louise ErdrichLouise ErdrichKaren Louise Erdrich, known as Louise Erdrich, is an author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American heritage. She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...
-- AnishinaabeAnishinaabeAnishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
writer and poet - Chris EyreChris EyreChris Eyre , an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, is a film director and producer.His films focus on all aspects of contemporary Native American life, while dispelling the usual stereotypes. Eyre's debut film, Smoke Signals , won the coveted Sundance Film Festival Filmmakers...
-- Cheyenne-Arapaho director and producer
F
- Logan FontenelleLogan FontenelleLogan Fontenelle , also known as Shon-ga-ska , was a trader of French and Omaha ancestry, who served for years as an interpreter to the US Indian agent at the Bellevue Agency in Nebraska...
-- (OmahaOmahaOmaha may refer to:*Omaha , a Native American tribe that currently resides in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Nebraska-Places:United States* Omaha, Nebraska* Omaha, Arkansas* Omaha, Georgia* Omaha, Illinois* Omaha, Texas...
) chief and interpreter - L. FrankL. FrankL. Frank is the nom d'arte of L. Frank Manriquez, a Tongva-Acjachemen artist, writer, tribal scholar, cartoonist, and indigenous language activist. She lives and works in California.-Art:In 1990, L...
-- (Tongva, Ajachmem) Indian artist, tribal scholar, writer and activist - Juanita Growing Thunder FogartyJuanita Growing Thunder FogartyJuanita Growing Thunder Fogarty is an award-winning Assiniboine-Sioux bead worker and porcupine quill worker, who creates traditional Northern Plains regalia.-Background:...
, Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux quillworker and beadartist
G
- Chief GallChief GallGall Lakota Phizí, was a battle leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota in the long war against the United States. He was one of the commanders in the Battle of Little Bighorn.-Early years:...
-- (HunkpapaHunkpapaThe Hunkpapa are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota Sioux tribe. The name Húŋkpapȟa is a Sioux word meaning "Head of the Circle"...
Lakota) chief - Diane GlancyDiane GlancyDiane Glancy was born in 1941 in Kansas City, Missouri. She is a Cherokee poet, author and playwright. Glancy was awarded a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Missouri in 1964, then later continued her education at the University of Central Oklahoma, earning her a Masters degree in English...
-- (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
-descent) poet, author and playwright - GeronimoGeronimoGeronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly, "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident...
-- (ChiricahuaChiricahuaChiricahua are a group of Apache Native Americans who live in the Southwest United States. At the time of European encounter, they were living in 15 million acres of territory in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona in the United States, and in northern Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico...
ApacheApacheApache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
) leader - Owl GoingbackOwl GoingbackOwl Goingback is an American author of horror and children's books, a fiction ghostwriter, and a writer of non-fiction.-Works:Having served as a jet engine mechanic in the Air Force, and the former owner of a restaurant and lounge, Owl Goingback became a full time writer in 1987. He has written...
-- (ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
, CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) author - Jewelle GomezJewelle GomezJewelle Gomez is an American author, poet, critic and playwright. She lived and worked in New York City for twenty-two years working in public television, theatre as well as philanthropy before relocating to the West Coast...
-- (IowayIowa tribeThe Iowa , also known as the Báxoje, are a Native American Siouan people. Today they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska....
) writer - Janice GouldJanice GouldJanice Gould is a Koyangk'auwi Maidu writer and scholar. She is the author of Beneath My Heart, Earthquake Weather and co-editor with Dean Rader of Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry....
-- (MaiduMaiduThe Maidu are a group of Native Americans who live in Northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada, in the drainage area of the Feather and American Rivers...
) writer - Kiowa GordonKiowa GordonKiowa Joseph Gordon is an American actor, best known for his role in the Twilight Saga as Embry Call.- Early life :...
-- (HualapaiHualapaiThe Hualapai or Walapai are a tribe of Native Americans who live in the mountains of northwestern Arizona, United States. The name is derived from "hwa:l," the Hualapai word for ponderosa pine, "Hualapai" meaning "people of the ponderosa pine"...
) actor - Jusepe GutierrezJusepe GutierrezJusepe Gutierrez was a Native American guide and explorer. He was the only known survivor of the Umana and Leyba expedition to the Great Plains in 1594 or 1595...
-- AztecAztecThe Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
explorer
H
- Janet Campbell HaleJanet Campbell HaleJanet Campbell Hale is a Native American writer. Her father was a full-blood Coeur d'Alene, and her mother was of Kootenay, Cree and Irish descent....
, Coeur d'AleneCoeur d'Alene TribeThe Coeur d'Alene are a Native American people who lived in villages along the Coeur d'Alene, St. Joe, Clark Fork and Spokane Rivers; as well as sites on the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene, Lake Pend Oreille and Hayden Lake, in what is now northern Idaho, eastern Washington and western Montana.In...
-Ktunaxa-CreeCreeThe Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
writer - Handsome LakeHandsome LakeHandsome Lake was a Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois people. He was also half-brother to Cornplanter....
-- (SenecaSeneca nationThe Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...
) religious leader - Enoch Kelly HaneyEnoch Kelly HaneyEnoch Kelly Haney is an American politician and internationally-recognized Native American artist from Oklahoma, He has served as Principal Chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma from 2005 until 2009, and was previously a member of the Oklahoma Legislature.-Early life and education:Enoch Kelly...
-- (Seminole Nation of OklahomaSeminole Nation of OklahomaThe Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is a federally recognized Seminole tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the largest of the three federally recognized Seminole organizations, which include the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida...
), tribal leader, Oklahoma state legislator, and artist - Terri Crawford HansenTerri Crawford HansenTerri Crawford Hansen is a Native American journalist who focuses on environmental and scientific issues affecting North American tribal and worldwide indigenous communities...
-- Ho-ChunkHo-ChunkThe Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....
-PotawatomiPotawatomiThe Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. In the Potawatomi language, they generally call themselves Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and that was applied...
, journalist, and author - Joy HarjoJoy HarjoJoy Harjo is a Native American poet, musician, and author of ancestry. Known primarily as a poet, Harjo has also taught at the college level, played alto saxophone with a band called Poetic Justice, edited literary journals, and written screenplays. She is a member of the Muscogee Nation and...
, Muscogee Creek-CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
poet, musician, and author - Ira HayesIra HayesIra Hamilton Hayes was a Pima Native American and an American Marine who was one of the six men immortalized in the iconic photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima during World War II. Hayes was an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community in Sacaton, Arizona, and enlisted in the Marine...
-- (PimaPimaThe Pima are a group of American Indians living in an area consisting of what is now central and southern Arizona. The long name, "Akimel O'odham", means "river people". They are closely related to the Tohono O'odham and the Hia C-ed O'odham...
) One of five Marines, along with a United States Navy corpsman, immortalized in the iconic photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima. - William Least Heat-MoonWilliam Least Heat-MoonWilliam Least Heat-Moon, the byname of William Lewis Trogdon is an American travel writer of English, Irish and Osage Nation ancestry. He is the author of a bestselling trilogy of topographical U.S. travel writing.-Biography:...
-- (OsageOsage NationThe Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
) writer - Allison Hedge CokeAllison Hedge CokeAllison Adelle Hedge Coke is an American Book Award-winning American/Canadian poet of mixed Wendat/Huron/Metis/Tsalagi/ Creek/French Canadian/Portuguese/Irish/Scot/English ancestry.-Background:...
- Gordon HenryGordon HenryGordon Henry is an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe of Minnesota, and was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in Literature from the University of North Dakota and is currently a professor of English at Michigan State University.Henry's first novel, The Light...
-- (Chippewa) writer - John HerringtonJohn HerringtonJohn Bennett Herrington is an American business executive, former US Navy officer and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of one Space Shuttle mission. He is the first enrolled member of a Native American tribe to fly in space....
-- (ChickasawChickasawThe Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
) NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
astronaut . - HiawathaHiawathaHiawatha was a legendary Native American leader and founder of the Iroquois confederacy...
-- (OnondagaOnondaga (tribe)The Onondaga are one of the original five constituent nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Their traditional homeland is in and around Onondaga County, New York...
, MohawkMohawk nationMohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...
) chief was credited as the founder of the Iroquois confederacyIroquoisThe Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America... - Linda HoganLinda Hogan (writer)Linda K. Hogan is a Native American poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist, environmentalist and writer of short stories.She is currently the Chickasaw Nation's Writer in Residence.-Early life:Linda Hogan is Chickasaw...
-- (ChickasawChickasawThe Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
) poet, storyteller, academic, environmentalist and writer. - Janel HortonJanel HortonJanel Horton is an American professional wrestler and manager, known by her ringname Alere Little Feather, who competes in North American independent promotions including Chikara, MXW Pro Wrestling, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, Jersey All Pro Wrestling, the National Wrestling Alliance, National...
, professional wrestler known as "Alere Little Feather" - LeAnne HoweLeAnne HoweLeAnne Howe is an author and scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Howe's work has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies. Her book Shell Shaker received the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book...
-- (ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
) author and scholar - Al HunterAl HunterAl Hunter is an Anishinaabe writer who has published poetry in books and journals, taught extensively, and performed internationally. A member of Rainy River First Nations and former chief, Hunter has expertise in land claims negotiations, and is a longstanding activist on behalf of indigenous...
-- (AnishinaabeAnishinaabeAnishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
) writer and poet
J
- Joseph James and Joseph James, Jr.Joseph James and Joseph James, Jr.Joseph James is the name of two Kaw/Osage/French interpreters on the Kansas and Oklahoma frontier in the nineteenth century. Both were usually called “Joe Jim” or “Jojim.”-Joe Jim:...
-- (KawKaw (tribe)The Kaw Nation are an American Indian people of the central Midwestern United States. The tribe known as Kaw have also been known as the "People of the South wind", "People of water", Kansa, Kaza, Kosa, and Kasa. Their tribal language is Kansa, classified as a Siouan language.The toponym "Kansas"...
-OsageOsage NationThe Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
) Interpreters and guides. - Mickie JamesMickie JamesMickie Laree James , better known simply as Mickie James, is an American professional wrestler and singer of mixed Native American-Caucasian descent, currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling , where she is a former two-time TNA Women's Knockout Champion.James began her professional...
-- (PowhatanPowhatanThe Powhatan is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607...
) professional wrestler - Stephen Graham JonesStephen Graham JonesStephen Graham Jones is a Blackfeet Native American author of experimental fiction, horror fiction, crime fiction, and science fiction. He shares a fan base with fellow authors Will Christopher Baer and Craig Clevenger known as . November 16, 2010 Stephen will have a collection of short stories...
-- (BlackfeetBlackfeetThe Piegan Blackfeet are a tribe of Native Americans of the Algonquian language family based in Montana, having lived in this area since around 6,500 BC. Many members of the tribe live as part of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with population centered in Browning...
) author - Chief JosephChief JosephHin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, popularly known as Chief Joseph, or Young Joseph was the leader of the Wal-lam-wat-kain band of Nez Perce during General Oliver O. Howard's attempt to forcibly remove his band and the other "non-treaty" Nez Perce to a reservation in Idaho...
-- (Nez Percé) chief and humanitarian - Betty Mae Tiger JumperBetty Mae Tiger JumperBetty Mae Tiger Jumper was the first female chief of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.-Life:Betty Mae Tiger Jumper was born on April 27, 1923, in a Seminole camp near Indiantown, Florida. She grew up in Dania, in Broward County. At night Betty Tiger listened as older members of the tribe told stories...
-- (SeminoleSeminoleThe Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
) the first female chief of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, she was also a publisher - Daniel Heath JusticeDaniel Heath JusticeDaniel Heath Justice is a U.S.-born Canadian citizen of the Cherokee Nation and the author of Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History as well as an Indigenous fantasy trilogy, The Way of Thorn & Thunder--Kynship , Wyrwood , and Dreyd --all published by Kegedonce Press...
, Cherokee NationCherokee NationThe Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
author
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- Maude KeggMaude KeggMaude Kegg was an Ojibwa writer, folk artist, and cultural interpreter...
-- (OjibwaOjibwaThe Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...
) writer, folk artist, and cultural interpreter - KeokukKeokuk (Sauk chief)Keokuk was a chief of the Sauk or Sac tribe in central North America noted for his policy of cooperation with the U.S. government which led to conflict with Black Hawk, who led part of their band into the Black Hawk War...
-- (SacSac (tribe)The Sacs or Sauks are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture group. Their autonym is The Sacs or Sauks are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture group. Their autonym is The Sacs or Sauks are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture...
, Fox) chief - Thomas King -- (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) novelist and broadcaster
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- Winona LaDukeWinona LaDukeWinona LaDuke is a Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president as the nominee of the United States Green Party, on a ticket headed by Ralph Nader. In the 2004 election, however, she endorsed one of Nader's opponents, Democratic...
, White Earth Ojibwe environmental activist and writer - Susan La Flesche PicotteSusan La Flesche PicotteDr. Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first American Indian woman to become a physician in the United States. She grew up with her parents on the Omaha Reservation. She went to college at the Hampton Institute and got her medical degree at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia...
-- (OmahaOmaha (tribe)The Omaha are a federally recognized Native American nation which lives on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska and western Iowa, United States...
) first female Native American physician. - Carole LaFavorCarole LaFavorCarole S. LaFavor is an Ojibwe novelist, activist and nurse. She was a member of the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS from 1995–1997 and a founding member of Positively Native, an organisation that supports Native American people with HIV/AIDS. She was featured in Mona Smith's 1988 film...
-- (OjibwaOjibwaThe Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...
) novelist and activist - Hyapatia LeeHyapatia LeeHyapatia Lee of Cherokee and Irish descent, is a former American exotic dancer and pornographic actress...
-- (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) actress - Edmonia LewisEdmonia LewisMary Edmonia Lewis was the first African American and Native American woman to gain fame and recognition as a sculptor in the international fine arts world...
Ojibwe sculptor - Sacheen LittlefeatherSacheen LittlefeatherSacheen Littlefeather is a Native American activist who donned Apache dress and presented a speech on behalf of actor Marlon Brando, for his performance in The Godfather, when he boycotted the 45th Academy Awards ceremony on March 27, 1973, in protest of the treatment of Native Americans by the...
-- (Yaqui) actress - LitefootLitefootGary Paul Davis , better known by his stage name Litefoot, is a Native American rapper and the founder of the Red Vinyl record label. He also portrayed Little Bear in the movie The Indian in the Cupboard.-Personal life:...
(Cherokee NationCherokee NationThe Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
-ChichimecaChichimecaChichimeca was the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to a wide range of semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited the north of modern-day Mexico and southwestern United States, and carried the same sense as the European term "barbarian"...
), actor, hip hop artist - Little Turtle -- (MiamiMiami tribeThe Miami are a Native American nation originally found in what is now Indiana, southwest Michigan, and western Ohio. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma is the only federally recognized tribe of Miami Indians in the United States...
) chief - Clayton J. LonetreeClayton J. LonetreeClayton J. Lonetree is a member of the Navajo Nation who served nine years in prison for espionage. During the early 1980s, Lonetree was a Marine Corps Security Guard stationed at the Embassy of the United States in Moscow....
-- WinnebagoHo-ChunkThe Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....
U.S. Marine and SpySPYSPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
for the KGBKGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the... - Lone WolfLone Wolf (person)Lone Wolf the Younger was the adopted son of Chief Lone Wolf the Elder. His original name was Mamadayte. The elder Lone Wolf adopted the then 15-year-old Mamadayte and gave him his name for his bravery in battle....
-- (KiowaKiowaThe Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
) chief - Phil LucasPhil LucasPhil Lucas was an American filmmaker of mostly Native American themes. He acted, wrote, produced, directed or edited more than 100 films/documentaries or television programs starting as early as 1979 when he wrote/co-produced and co-directed Images of Indians for PBS - a five-part series exploring...
-- (ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
) filmmaker, actor, writer, producer, director and editor - Luke 'Pocahontas' Harlow -- (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) Gay Rights Activist
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- Major RidgeMajor RidgeMajor Ridge, The Ridge was a Cherokee Indian member of the tribal council, a lawmaker, and a leader. He was a veteran of the Chickamauga Wars, the Creek War, and the First Seminole War.Along with Charles R...
- Cherokee chief, led Lighthorse Patrol and signed the Treaty of New Echota. - Mangas ColoradasMangas ColoradasMangas Coloradas, or Dasoda-hae , was an Apache tribal chief and a member of the Eastern Chiricahua nation, whose homeland stretched west from the Rio Grande to include most of what is present-day southwestern New Mexico...
- Apache chief - Wilma MankillerWilma MankillerWilma Pearl Mankiller was the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She served as principal chief for ten years from 1985 to 1995.-Early life:...
- Cherokee Nation chief - Joseph Marshall IIIJoseph Marshall IIIJoseph Marshall III is a Lakota Sioux educator and writer. He was born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and he writes mainly historical fiction about events in Lakota history...
- María MartínezMaria MartinezMaria Montoya Martinez was a Native American artist who created internationally known pottery...
, San Ildefonso Pueblo potter - MassasoitMassasoitMassasoit Sachem or Ousamequin ,was the sachem, or leader, of the Pokanoket, and "Massasoit" of the Wampanoag Confederacy. The term Massasoit means Great Sachem.-Early years:...
- Wampanoag chief - John Joseph Mathews
- Janet McAdamsJanet McAdamsJanet McAdams is an Alabama Creek/Scottish/Irish poet and the author of The Island of Lost Luggage which received an American Book Award in 2001 and the First Book Award for Poetry from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas in 1999...
- Edward "Wahoo" McDanielWahoo McDanielEdward "Wahoo" McDaniel was a Choctaw-Chickasaw Native American who achieved fame as a professional American football player and later as a professional wrestler.-Early life:...
, ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
-ChickasawChickasawThe Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
professional wrestler - Alexander McGillivrayAlexander McGillivrayAlexander McGillivray, also known as Hoboi-Hili-Miko , was a principal chief of the Upper Creek towns from 1782. Before that he had created an alliance between the Creek and the British during the American Revolution...
, Muscogee Creek chief - William McIntosh, Muscogee Creek chief
- D'Arcy McNickleD'Arcy McNickleD'Arcy McNickle was a writer, Native American activist and anthropologist.-Biography:D’Arcy McNickle, an enrolled Salish Kootenai on the Flathead Indian Reservation, became one of the most prominent twentieth-century American Indian activists...
- Mardi Oakley MedawarMardi Oakley MedawarMardi Oakley Medawar is a novelist of Cherokee descent who lives on the Red Cliff Chippewa Reservation. Her novels mostly centre around Kiowa and Crow tribes, and usually work within the mystery genre.-Novels:...
- Russell MeansRussell MeansRussell Charles Means is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage...
, Lakota activist and actor - Joe Medicine CrowJoe Medicine CrowJoseph Medicine Crow is a Crow historian and author. He is also an enrolled member of the Crow Nation of Native Americans...
(Crow NationCrow NationThe Crow, also called the Absaroka or Apsáalooke, are a Siouan people of Native Americans who historically lived in the Yellowstone River valley, which extends from present-day Wyoming, through Montana and into North Dakota. They now live on a reservation south of Billings, Montana and in several...
), anthropologist - Miantonomo, Narragansett chief
- Devon A. MihesuahDevon A. MihesuahDevon Abbott Mihesuah is a Choctaw historian and writer, and a previous editor of the American Indian Quarterly.Mihesuah's non-fiction work concentrates on stereotypes and misrepresentations of Native American peoples, customs and beliefs in academic writing.-Fiction:*Document of Expectations *Big...
- Billy MillsBilly MillsWilliam Mervin Mills or "Billy" Mills, also known as Makata Taka Hela , is the second Native American to win an Olympic gold medal....
, Oglala LakotaOglala LakotaThe Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
athlete - Deborah A. MirandaDeborah A. MirandaDeborah Miranda is a Native American writer and poet. Her father, Alfred Edward Robles Mirada is from the Esselen and Chumash people, native to the Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez/Monterery, California area...
- N. Scott MomadayN. Scott MomadayNavarre Scott Momaday is a Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.-Background:...
, KiowaKiowaThe Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
-CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
poet, author, scholar, and painter - Irvin MorrisIrvin MorrisIrvin Morris is a Navajo Nation author and has taught at Cornell University, the State University of New York, the University of Arizona, and Dine College. He received his MFA at Cornell University. His work, From the Glittering World: A Navajo Story is a blend of Navajo creation narrative,...
- Mountain Wolf WomanMountain Wolf WomanMountain Wolf Woman, or Xéhachiwinga , was a Native American woman of the Ho-Chunk tribe. She was born in April 1884 into the Thunder Clan near Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Her parents were Charles Blowsnake and Lucy Goodvillage...
- Mourning DoveMourning Dove (author)Mourning Dove was a Native American author and best known for her 1927 novel Cogewea the Half-Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range, which tells the story of Cogewea, a mixed-blood ranch woman on the Flathead Indian Reservation. The novel is one of the first written by a Native...
N
- R. Carlos NakaiR. Carlos NakaiRaymond Carlos “R.” Nakai is a Native American flautist of Navajo/Ute heritage.-Biography:Born Ray Carlos Nakai, in Flagstaff, Arizona, he released his first album, Changes, in 1983...
(NavajoNavajo peopleThe Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
), musician - NampeyoNampeyoIris Nampeyo was a Hopi potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in present-day Arizona. She received the English name Iris as an infant, but was better known by her Tewa name, Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite"....
- HopiHopiThe Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
potter - Nora Naranjo-MorseNora Naranjo-MorseNora Naranjo-Morse is a Native American potter and poet. She currently resides in Espanola, New Mexico just north of Santa Fe and is a member of the Santa Clara Pueblo...
- Nas'NagaNas'NagaNas'Naga is the pen-name of Shawnee writer Roger Russell. He was the fourth writer published in the Harper & Row Native American Publishing series....
, ShawneeShawneeThe Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are an Algonquian-speaking people native to North America. Historically they inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania... - Chuck NorrisChuck NorrisCarlos Ray "Chuck" Norris is an American martial artist and actor. After serving in the United States Air Force, he began his rise to fame as a martial artist and has since founded his own school, Chun Kuk Do...
- CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
actor, martial artist, author - Jim NorthrupJim Northrup (writer)Jim Northrup is an Anishinaabe newspaper columnist, poet, performer and political commentator from the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation in Minnesota...
- Nila NorthSunNila northSunis a Native American poet and tribal historian, one of the best-known figures in the Native American Renaissance. Her gritty, realistic poems about life both on and off the reservation have made her one of the most widely read of all Native American poets....
O
- St. David Pendleton Oakerhater, CheyenneCheyenneCheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
warrior, artist, deacon, and saint in the Episcopal church - Samson OccomSamson OccomThe Reverend Samson Occom was a Native American Presbyterian clergyman and a member of the Mohegan nation near New London, Connecticut...
- MoheganMoheganThe Mohegan tribe is an Algonquian-speaking tribe that lives in the eastern upper Thames River valley of Connecticut. Mohegan translates to "People of the Wolf". At the time of European contact, the Mohegan and Pequot were one people, historically living in the lower Connecticut region...
clergyman - Old TomOld Tom (medicine man)Old Tom is the name of an alleged Blackfoot medicine man who lived in Montana during the early twentieth century. Some sources suggest that he may have been Piegan or Sarcee.-Historicity:...
- BlackfootBlackfootThe Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
shaman - Opechancanough - PamunkeyPamunkeyThe Pamunkey nation are one of eleven Virginia Indian tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The historical tribe was part of the Powhatan paramountcy, made up of Algonquian-speaking tribes. The Powhatan paramount chiefdom was made up over 30 tribes, estimated to total about...
Indian chief - OratamOratamOratam was sagamore, or sachem, of the Hackensack Indians living in northeastern New Jersey during the period of early European colonization in the 17th century...
- sachem of the Hackensack Indians - Simon J. OrtizSimon J. OrtizSimon J. Ortiz is a Native American writer of the Acoma Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what has been called the Native American Renaissance...
, Acoma PuebloAcoma PuebloAcoma Pueblo is a Native American pueblo approximately 60 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico in the United States. Three reservations make up Acoma Pueblo: Sky City , Acomita, and McCartys. The Acoma Pueblo tribe is a federally recognized tribal entity...
poet - OsceolaOsceolaOsceola, also known as Billy Powell , became an influential leader with the Seminole in Florida. He was of Creek, Scots-Irish and English parentage, and had migrated to Florida with his mother after the defeat of the Creek in 1814.Osceola led a small band of warriors in the Seminole resistance...
, SeminoleSeminoleThe Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
leader - Chief OshkoshChief OshkoshChief Oshkosh was the chief of the Menominee Indian tribe from 1827 until his death. He played a key role in treaty negotiations as the Menominee tribe tried to protect their lands in Wisconsin from the resettling New York Indians and the American pioneers...
, MenomineeMenomineeSome placenames use other spellings, see also Menomonee and Menomonie.The Menominee are a nation of Native Americans living in Wisconsin. The Menominee, along with the Ho-Chunk, are the only tribes that are indigenous to what is now Wisconsin...
leader - Chief OurayChief OurayOuray was a Native American chief of the Uncompahgre band of the Ute tribe, then located in western Colorado...
, Ute TribeUte TribeThe Ute are an American Indian people now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah ; Southern Ute in Colorado ; and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico . The name of the state of...
leader - Louis OwensLouis OwensLouis Owens was a novelist and scholar of Choctaw, Cherokee and Irish descent. He is known for a series of Native-themed mystery novels and for his contributions to the then-fledgling field of Native American Studies...
, ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
-CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
author - Owl WomanOwl WomanOwl Woman , was a Cheyenne princess. She married an Anglo American trader named William Bent, with whom she had four children. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame for her role in managing relations between Native American tribes and the Anglo American men...
, CheyenneCheyenneCheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
negotiator, peace-maker, Colorado Women's Hall of FameColorado Women's Hall of FameThe Colorado Women's Hall of Fame is a non-profit, volunteer organization that recognizes women who have contributed to history of the U.S. state of Colorado.-History:...
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- Ely S. ParkerEly S. ParkerEly Samuel Parker , was a Seneca attorney, engineer, and tribal diplomat. He was commissioned a lieutenant colonel during the American Civil War, when he served as adjutant to General Ulysses S. Grant. He wrote the final draft of the Confederate surrender terms at Appomattox...
- U.S. Army Brigadier General - Quanah ParkerQuanah ParkerQuanah Parker was a Comanche chief, a leader in the Native American Church, and the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory...
, ComancheComancheThe Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
chief - Elise PaschenElise PaschenElise Paschen, a poet of Osage descent, is the co-founder and co-editor of Poetry in Motion, a program which places poetry posters in subways and buses across the country. The daughter of renowned prima ballerina, Maria Tallchief, and Chicago builder Henry D. Paschen, she was born and raised in...
- Pawhuska, OsageOsage NationThe Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
Chief - Leonard PeltierLeonard PeltierLeonard Peltier is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement . In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine...
, OjibwaOjibwaThe Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...
-Lakota activist - William S. PennWilliam S. PennWilliam S. Penn is a mixed-race Nez Perce author and English professor at Michigan State. His work explores the issues his father faced coming to terms with his Indian heritage. His work may be classified as magical realism. He has also written a nonfiction work, All My Sins are Relatives about...
- Robert L. PereaRobert L. PereaRobert L. Perea is a Mexican-American and Oglala Sioux author, Vietnam War veteran and a graduate of the University of New Mexico. He teaches philosophy and history at Central Arizona College near Phoenix...
- Lori PiestewaLori PiestewaSPC Lori Ann Piestewa was a U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps soldier killed during the same Iraqi Army attack in which fellow soldiers Shoshana Johnson and Jessica Lynch sustained injuries. A member of the Hopi tribe, Piestewa was the first Native American woman in history to die in combat while...
, HopiHopiThe Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
veteran, Died in the 2003 invasion of Iraq - Lawrence Plamondon, OdawaOdawa peopleThe Odawa or Ottawa, said to mean "traders," are a Native American and First Nations people. They are one of the Anishinaabeg, related to but distinct from the Ojibwe nation. Their original homelands are located on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, on the Bruce Peninsula in...
-Ojibwe activist and storyteller - PocahontasPocahontasPocahontas was a Virginia Indian notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Chief Powhatan, the head of a network of tributary tribal nations in Tidewater Virginia...
, PowhatanPowhatanThe Powhatan is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607...
diplomat - Leopold PokagonLeopold PokagonLeopold Pokagon was a Potawatomi Wkema . Taking over from Topinbee, who died in 1826, Pokagon became the head of the Potawatomi of the Saint Joseph River Valley in Michigan, a band that later took his name....
, PotawatomiPotawatomiThe Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. In the Potawatomi language, they generally call themselves Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and that was applied... - Simon PokagonSimon PokagonSimon Pokagon was a member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, an author, and a Native American advocate. He was born near Bertrand in southwest Michigan and died on January 28, 1899 in Hartford, Michigan. Dubbed the “Red Man’s Longfellow” by literary fans, Pokagon was often called the...
, PotawatomiPotawatomiThe Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. In the Potawatomi language, they generally call themselves Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and that was applied... - Chief PontiacChief PontiacPontiac or Obwandiyag , was an Ottawa leader who became famous for his role in Pontiac's Rebellion , an American Indian struggle against the British military occupation of the Great Lakes region following the British victory in the French and Indian War. Historians disagree about Pontiac's...
, OdawaOdawa peopleThe Odawa or Ottawa, said to mean "traders," are a Native American and First Nations people. They are one of the Anishinaabeg, related to but distinct from the Ojibwe nation. Their original homelands are located on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, on the Bruce Peninsula in...
chief - PopéPopéPopé or Po'pay was a Tewa religious leader from Ohkay Owingeh , who led the Pueblo Revolt against Spanish colonial rule in 1680.-Background:...
, Ohkay Owingeh religious and military lear - Susan PowerSusan PowerSusan Power is a Standing Rock Sioux author from Chicago. She earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a JD from Harvard Law School...
, Standing Rock Sioux author - PowhatanPowhatanThe Powhatan is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607...
, PowhatanPowhatanThe Powhatan is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607...
chief - PushmatahaPushmatahaPushmataha , the "Indian General", was one of the three regional chiefs of the major divisions of the Choctaw in the nineteenth century. Many historians considered him the "greatest of all Choctaw chiefs"...
, ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
chief and U.S. Army Brigadier General
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- Red CloudRed CloudRed Cloud , was a war leader and the head Chief of the Oglala Lakota . His reign was from 1868 to 1909...
, Oglala Sioux chief - Red JacketRed JacketRed Jacket was a Native American Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan...
, Seneca NationSeneca nationThe Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...
chief - Delphine Red ShirtDelphine Red ShirtDelphine Red Shirt is a Native-American writer.-Biography:Red Shirt spent her earliest years off the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in a small town in northern Nebraska where she attended public school, learning to speak English for the first time...
, Oglala LakotaOglala LakotaThe Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
author - Ben ReifelBen ReifelBenjamin "Ben" Reifel, also known as Lone Feather was a public administrator and politician of Lakota Sioux and German-American descent. He had a career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, retiring as area administrator...
- Sioux activist and U.S. representative from South Dakota - Carter RevardCarter RevardCarter Curtis Revard is an American poet, writer and scholar. He is part Osage on his father's side. He is also known by his Osage name, Nom-Peh-Wah-The given to him in 1952 by his grandmother, Mrs. Josephine Jump....
- Chief G. Anne RichardsonG. Anne RichardsonG. Anne Nelson was born in 1965 to Chief and Mrs. Captain Nelson of Indian Neck, Virginia.Anne was elected Assistant Chief to her father in 1980...
(Chief of the Rappahannock tribeRappahannock TribeThe Rappahannock are one of the eleven state-recognized Native American tribes in Virginia. They are made up of descendants of several small Algonquian-speaking tribes who merged in the 17th century.-17th century:...
- first female chief in Virginia since the 18th century) - Will RogersWill RogersWilliam "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....
, CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
actor and humorist - Will Rogers, Jr.Will Rogers, Jr.William Vann Rogers, generally known as Will Rogers, Jr. , was a son of legendary humorist Will Rogers and his wife, the former Betty Blake . He was a Democratic U. S. Representative from California from January 3, 1943 until May 23, 1944, when he resigned to return to the United States Army...
, Cherokee NationCherokee NationThe Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
journalist and politician - John Rollin RidgeJohn Rollin RidgeJohn Rollin Ridge , a member of the Cherokee Nation, is considered the first Native American novelist.-Biography:...
, CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
author - Wendy RoseWendy RoseWendy Rose is a Hopi/Miwok writer. Having grown up in an environment which placed little emphasis on her Native American background, much of her verse deals with her search for her personal identity as a Native American...
, HopiHopiThe Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
-MiwokMiwokMiwok can refer to any one of four linguistically related groups of Native Americans, native to Northern California, who spoke one of the Miwokan languages in the Utian family...
author - John RossJohn Ross (Cherokee chief)John Ross , also known as Guwisguwi , was Principal Chief of the Cherokee Native American Nation from 1828–1866...
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- Juan SabeataJuan SabeataJuan Sabeata was a Jumano Indian leader in present day Texas who tried to forge an alliance with the Spanish or French to help his people fend off the encroachments of the Apaches on their territory. -Life:...
, JumanoJumano IndiansThe Jumano Indians were a prominent Native American tribe or several tribes who inhabited western Texas and adjacent New Mexico, especially near the La Junta region. They were discovered by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. but had nearly disappeared as a people by 1750.-The Jumano...
chief - Sacajawea, ShoshoneShoshoneThe Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
interpreter - SamosetSamosetSamoset was the first Native American to make contact with the Pilgrims. On March 16, 1621, the settlers were more than surprised when Samoset strolled straight through the middle of the encampment at Plymouth Colony and greeted them in English, which he had begun to learn from an earlier group of...
, AlgonquianAlgonquian peoplesThe Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
Abenaki leader - Carol Lee SanchezCarol Lee SanchezCarol Lee Sanchez is a poet, visual artist, essayist, teacher and mother of three adult children. She is a native of New Mexico and her cultural heritage is mostly Laguna Pueblo and Lebanese-American. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Art Administration from San Francisco State University in 1978...
- William SandersWilliam Sanders (writer)William Sanders is an American science fiction writer, primarily of short fiction, and was the senior editor of the now defunct online science fiction magazine Helix SF....
- Greg SarrisGreg SarrisGregory Michael Sarris is a college professor, author, screenwriter, and a member and current Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. He was chosen in 2005 to fill the Endowed Chair in Native American Studies at Sonoma State University...
, Federated Indians of Graton RancheriaFederated Indians of Graton RancheriaThe Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, formerly known as the Federated Coast Miwok, is a federally recognized American Indian tribe of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo Indians. The tribe was officially restored to federal recognition by the U.S. government pursuant to the Graton Rancheria...
tribal chairman, author, and professor - Jane Johnston SchoolcraftJane Johnston SchoolcraftJane Johnston Schoolcraft, also known as Bamewawagezhikaquay is the first known American Indian literary writer. She was of Ojibwa and Scots-Irish ancestry...
- Chief SeattleChief SeattleChief Seattle , was a Dkhw’Duw’Absh chief, also known as Sealth, Seathle, Seathl, or See-ahth. A prominent figure among his people, he pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, forming a personal relationship with David Swinson "Doc" Maynard. Seattle, Washington was named after him...
, SuquamishSuquamishThe Suquamish are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American Tribe, located in present-day Washington in the United States.The Suquamish are a southern Coast Salish people; they spoke a dialect of Lushootseed, which belongs to the Salishan language family. Like many Northwest Coast natives, the...
leader - SelenaSelenaSelena Quintanilla-Pérez , known simply as Selena, was a Mexican American singer-songwriter. She was named the "top Latin artist of the '90s" and "Best selling Latin artist of the decade" by Billboard for her fourteen top-ten singles in the Top Latin Songs chart, including seven number-one hits...
, (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) legendary Latin pop singer - SequoyahSequoyahSequoyah , named in English George Gist or George Guess, was a Cherokee silversmith. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible...
(CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
), inventor of the Cherokee syllabaryCherokee syllabaryThe Cherokee syllabary is a syllabary invented by Sequoyah to write the Cherokee language in the late 1810s and early 1820s. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy in that he could not previously read any script. He first experimented with logograms, but his system later developed... - The Prohet, Shawnee religious leader
- Leslie Marmon SilkoLeslie Marmon SilkoLeslie Marmon Silko is a Native American writer of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, and one of the key figures in the second wave of what Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance...
, Laguna PuebloLaguna PuebloLaguna is a Native American tribe of the Pueblo people in west-central New Mexico, USA. The name, Laguna, is Spanish and derives from the lake located on their reservation. The real Keresan name of the tribe is Kawaik. The population of the tribe exceeds 7,000 , making it the largest Keresan...
poet and novelist - Sitting BullSitting BullSitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
, Hunkpapa Lakota chief - Chad Smith, Principal Chief of Cherokee NationCherokee NationThe Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
- Andrea SmithAndrea Smith (academic)Andrea Lee Smith is a intellectual, feminist, and anti-violence activist. Smith's work focuses on issues of violence against women of color and their communities, specifically Native American women...
- Cynthia Leitich SmithCynthia Leitich SmithCynthia Leitich Smith is a New York Times best-selling author of fiction for children and young adults. A member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, she writes fiction for children centered on the lives of modern-day American Indians. These books are taught widely by teachers in elementary, middle...
- Keely SmithKeely SmithKeely Smith is an American jazz and popular music singer who enjoyed popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. She collaborated with, among others, Louis Prima and Frank Sinatra.-Career:...
, (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) singer - SmohallaSmohallaSmohalla Wanapum nineteenth-century dreamer-prophet associated with the Dreamers movement among Native American people in the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia Plateau region.-Biography:...
, WanapumWanapumThe Wanapum tribe of Native Americans formerly lived along the Columbia River from above Priest Rapids down to the mouth of the Snake River in what is now the U.S. state of Washington. About 60 Wanapum still live near the present day site of Priest Rapids Dam...
chief and religious leader - Sonuk MikkoSonuk MikkoSonuk Mikko , commonly known as Billy Bowlegs and also known as So-Nuk-Mek-Ko, was a Seminole who gained recognition as a captain in the American Civil War...
, Captain in the Indian Home GuardIndian Home Guard (American Civil War)The Indian Home Guard were volunteer infantry regiments recruited from the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory to support the Union during the American Civil War....
during the American Civil War often referred to as Billy BowlegsBilly BowlegsthumbChief Billy Bowlegs or Billy Bolek was a leader of the Seminoles in Florida during the Second and Third Seminole Wars against the United States... - Louis SockalexisLouis SockalexisLouis Francis "Chief" Sockalexis , nicknamed The Deerfoot of the Diamond, was an American baseball player...
(Penobscot), Major League Baseball player - Ian SomerhalderIan SomerhalderIan Joseph Somerhalder is an American model, actor and producer, best known for playing Boone Carlyle in the TV drama Lost and Damon Salvatore in the TV drama The Vampire Diaries.-Early life:...
, (ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
) actor - Eddie SpearsEddie SpearsEddie Spears is an American actor. He is a member of the Kul Wicasa Oyate Lakota Lower Brulé Tribe of South Dakota.He has 5 brothers and 1 sister. His older brother Michael is also an actor....
, (Lakota) - Michael SpearsMichael SpearsMichael Spears is an American actor.Spears was born in Lower Brulé Tribe, South Dakota to Native American parents. He is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Lower Brule Tribe of South Dakota...
, (Lakota) - SquantoSquantoTisquantum was a Patuxet. He was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival. The Patuxet tribe was a tributary of the Wampanoag Confederacy.-Biography:Squanto's exact date of birth is unknown but many historians...
, PatuxetPatuxetThe Patuxet are an extinct Native American tribe of the Wampanoag tribal confederation. They lived primarily in and around the area of what has since been settled as Plymouth, Massachusetts.-Devastation:...
interpreter - Standing BearStanding BearStanding Bear was a Ponca Native American chief who successfully argued in U.S...
, PoncaPoncaThe Ponca are a Native American people of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan-language group. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma...
Chief - Luther Standing BearLuther Standing BearLuther Standing Bear , aka Ota Kte or Mochunozhin, was a Native American writer and actor....
- James Thomas StevensJames Thomas StevensJames Thomas Stevens is an American poet and academic. He is a member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and currently teaches at the College of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.-Background:...
- Wes StudiWes StudiWesley "Wes" Studi is a Cherokee actor, who has earned notability for his portrayal of Native Americans in film. He has appeared in well-received Academy Award-winning films, such as Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves, Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans, the award-winning Geronimo: An...
, Cherokee NationCherokee NationThe Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
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- Chief Tahachee
- Maria TallchiefMaria TallchiefMaria Tallchief was the first native-American prima ballerina. From 1942 to 1947 she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but she is best known for her time with the New York City Ballet from 1947 to 1965.-Early life:...
-- Osage NationOsage NationThe Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
ballerina - Marjorie TallchiefMarjorie TallchiefMarjorie Louise Tallchief was a ballerina of the Osage Nation.-Career:Tallchief was the first American Indian to be "première danseuse étoile" of the Paris Opera Ballet and performed with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. During her career she also performed for politicians such as John F....
-- Osage NationOsage NationThe Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
ballerina - Margo TamezMargo TamezMargo Tamez is an Nde' indigenous Lipan Apache and Jumano Apache scholar and poet. She was born and grew up in South Texas and the Lower Rio Grande Valley, along the Texas-Mexico border. Tamez's 2007 work, Raven Eye, is considered the first fusion of creative non-fiction, biography, and poetry...
- Luci TapahonsoLuci TapahonsoLuci Tapahonso is a Navajo poet and lecturer in Native American Studies.-Early life:Born on the Navajo reservation, to Eugene Tapahonso , and Lucille Tapahonso, , Luci Tapahonso was raised in a traditional way along with 11 siblings. English was not spoken on the family farm, and Tapahonso...
- TecumsehTecumsehTecumseh was a Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy which opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812...
-- ShawneeShawneeThe Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are an Algonquian-speaking people native to North America. Historically they inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania...
warrior and statesman - Kateri TekakwithaKateri TekakwithaKateri Tekakwitha or Catherine Tekakwitha was a Mohawk-Algonquian woman from New York and an early convert to Catholicism, who has been beatified in the Roman Catholic Church.-Her life:...
-- MohawkMohawk nationMohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...
-AlgonquianAlgonquian peoplesThe Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
convert, beatified in the Roman Catholic Church - Randy'L He-dow TetonRandy'L He-dow TetonRandy'L He-dow Teton is the Shoshone woman who posed as the model for the US Sacagawea dollar coin, first issued in 2000. She is the only living person whose image appears on American currency.-Biography:...
-- ShoshoneShoshoneThe Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
model for the US Sacagawea dollar coin, first issued in 2000. She is the first Native American woman to appear on an American coin. - William Clyde ThompsonWilliam Clyde ThompsonCaptain William Clyde Thompson was a Texas Choctaw leader who rallied against the Dawes Commission for Choctaw enrollment. He was born in 1839 near Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nation.-Background:...
-- Texas ChoctawChoctawThe Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
leader who fought against the Dawes CommissionDawes CommissionThe American Dawes Commission, named for its first chairman Henry L. Dawes, was authorized under a rider to an Indian Office appropriation bill, March 3, 1893...
for Choctaw enrollment. - Jim ThorpeJim ThorpeJacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe * Gerasimo and Whiteley. pg. 28 * americaslibrary.gov, accessed April 23, 2007. was an American athlete of mixed ancestry...
(Sac and Fox NationSac and Fox NationThe Sac and Fox Nation is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Sac and Meskwaki Native Americans. They are located in Oklahoma and are predominantly Sac....
), Olympic Gold medalist and football and baseball player - George TinkerGeorge TinkerGeorge E. "Tink" Tinker is a prominent American Indian theologian and scholar who is the author of many articles, the books Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation, Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Theology, and co-author of Native American...
- Gordon Tootoosis
- Touch the CloudsTouch the CloudsTouch the Clouds was a chief of the Minneconjou Teton Lakota known for his bravery and skill in battle, physical strength and for his diplomacy in counsel. The youngest son of Lone Horn, he was brother to Spotted Elk, Frog, and Roman Nose...
-- (Mahpia Icahtagya), great Teton Lakota Sioux chief - Sheila TouseySheila TouseySheila May Tousey is an Native American actress.-Biography:Born in Keshena, Wisconsin, Tousey is a Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee Indian, raised on both Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee Reservations.-Filmography:-External links:*...
, (MenomineeMenomineeSome placenames use other spellings, see also Menomonee and Menomonie.The Menominee are a nation of Native Americans living in Wisconsin. The Menominee, along with the Ho-Chunk, are the only tribes that are indigenous to what is now Wisconsin...
) - Mark TrahantMark TrahantMark Trahant is an independent print and broadcast journalist. He writes a weekly column and posts often on Twitter . Trahant was a reporter on the PBS series, Frontline, with a story called "The Silence," about sexual abuse by clergy in Alaska. Trahant was recently a Kaiser Media Fellow. At the...
-- ShoshoneShoshoneThe Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
-BannockBannock (tribe)The Bannock tribe of the Northern Paiute are an indigenous people of the Great Basin. Their traditional lands include southeastern Oregon, southeastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and southwestern Montana...
, print and broadcast journalist, and author - Haunani-Kay TraskHaunani-Kay TraskHaunani-Kay Trask is a Native Hawaiian academic, activist, documentarist and writer. Trask is a professor of Hawaiian Studies with the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and has represented Native Hawaiians in the United Nations and various other...
- Mililani TraskMililani TraskMililani Trask is a leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and a political speaker and attorney. One of Trask's contributions to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement was her founding of Na Koa Ikaika o Ka Lāhui Hawaii, a native Hawaiian non-governmental organization.Outside of Hawaii, Trask has...
- Gail TremblayGail TremblayGail Tremblay is a Mi'kmaq and Onondaga writer and artist.-Background:Trembley was born on 15 December 1945 in Buffalo, New York. She received her BA in drama from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in English from the University of Oregon, Eugene in 1969.-Writing and education career:She...
- David TreuerDavid TreuerDavid Treuer is a writer of Ojibwe and Jewish descent. He was born in Washington, D.C. and raised on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. He attended Princeton University and was graduated in 1992 after writing two senior theses, one in the anthropology department and one in...
- John TrudellJohn TrudellJohn Trudell is a Native American-Mexican author, poet, actor, musician, and former political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz...
-- SiouxSiouxThe Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
, musician, poet, activist - Mark TurcotteMark TurcotteMark Turcotte is a Native American poet. He has published two books of poetry, Exploding Chippewas and Feathered Heart.Turcotte is currently a visiting assistant professor of English at in Chicago, IL.- External links :* * *...
- Richard TwissRichard TwissRichard Twiss is a Native American educator and author. He is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate from the Rosebud Lakota Sioux Reservation in South Dakota...
- E. Donald Two-RiversE. Donald Two-RiversE. Donald "Ed" Two-Rivers was Anishinaabe...
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- James VannJames VannJames Vann was an influential Cherokee leader, one of the triumvirate with Major Ridge and Charles R. Hicks, who led the Upper Towns of East Tennessee and North Georgia. He was the son of Wah-Li Vann, a mixed-race Cherokee woman, and a Scots fur trader...
-- (CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
) richest man in the Cherokee NationCherokee NationThe Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
and was one of the richest men in the Western Hemisphere in the early 19th century. - VictorioVictorioVictorio was a warrior and chief of the Chihenne band of the Chiricahua Apaches in what is now the American states of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua....
-- Chiricahua Apache chief - Gerald VizenorGerald VizenorGerald Robert Vizenor is a Native American writer, and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. One of the most prolific Native American writers, with over 30 books to his name, Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley, where...
-- White Earth Ojibwe writer and professor
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- Velma WallisVelma WallisVelma Wallis is an Athabascan Indian and bestselling U.S. novelist. Her work has been translated into 17 languages.-Life and work:...
- Anna Lee WaltersAnna Lee WaltersAnna Lee Walters is an award-winning Pawnee/Otoe-Missouria author from Oklahoma.-Career:Walters works at the Diné College in Arizona, where she directs the college press. She lives in Tsaile, Arizona with her husband Harry Walters...
-- Pawnee-OtoeOtoe tribeThe Otoe or Oto are a Native American people. The Otoe language, Chiwere, is part of the Siouan family and closely related to that of the related Iowa and Missouri tribes.-History:...
author - Nancy WardNancy WardNanyehi , known in English as Nancy Ward was a Ghigau, or Beloved Woman of the Cherokee Nation, which meant that she was allowed to sit in councils and to make decisions, along with the other Beloved Women, on pardons...
-- Cherokee warrior, diplomat, and "Beloved Woman" - Stand WatieStand WatieStand Watie , also known as Standhope Uwatie, Degataga , meaning “stand firm”), and Isaac S. Watie, was a leader of the Cherokee Nation and a brigadier general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War...
-- CherokeeCherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
leader and a brigadier general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. - William WeatherfordWilliam WeatherfordWilliam Weatherford, also known as Lamochattee by the Creek , was a Creek chief of the Upper Towns who led the Red Sticks offensive in the Creek War against the United States...
-- Muscogee Creek chief - James Welch
- Floyd Red Crow WestermanFloyd Red Crow WestermanFloyd "Red Crow" Westerman, also known as Kanghi Duta was a Sioux musician, political activist and actor. After establishing a career as a country music singer, later in his life, he became a leading actor depicting Native Americans in American films and television. He is sometimes credited simply...
- White Hair (Pawhuska), the name of several Osage chiefs.
- White PlumeWhite PlumeWhite Plume , also known as Nom-pa-wa-rah, Manshenscaw, and Monchousia, was a chief of the Kaw Indians. He signed a treaty in 1825 ceding millions of acres of Kaw land to the United States. Most present-day members of the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma trace their lineage back to him...
-- KawKaw (tribe)The Kaw Nation are an American Indian people of the central Midwestern United States. The tribe known as Kaw have also been known as the "People of the South wind", "People of water", Kansa, Kaza, Kosa, and Kasa. Their tribal language is Kansa, classified as a Siouan language.The toponym "Kansas"...
chief - Sarah WinnemuccaSarah WinnemuccaSarah Winnemucca was a prominent female Native American activist and educator, and an influential figure in the United States' nineteenth-century Indian policies...
-- PaiutePaiutePaiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
leader, warrior, and interpreter, - Craig WomackCraig WomackCraig Womack is an author and professor of Native American literature. Creek-Cherokee by ancestry, Womack is best known for Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism, a book of literary criticism which argues that the dominant approach to academic study of Native American literature is...
- WovokaWovokaWovoka , also known as Jack Wilson, was the Northern Paiute religious leader who founded the Ghost Dance movement. Wovoka means "cutter" or "wood cutter" in the Northern Paiute language.-Biography:...
, PaiutePaiutePaiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
religious leader and founder of the Ghost DanceGhost DanceThe Ghost Dance was a new religious movement which was incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. The traditional ritual used in the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, has been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times...
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- Yellow Bird, Walla WallaWalla Walla (tribe)Walla Walla |Native American]] tribe of the northwestern United States. The reduplication of the word expresses the diminutive form. The name "Walla Walla" is translated several ways but most often as "many waters."...
chief - Ray Young BearRay Young BearRay Young Bear is a Native American poet and novelist of the Meskwaki tribe.Growing up on the Meskwaki Tribal Settlement in Iowa, he was encouraged to learn English by his maternal grandmother, and he began to translate his poems into that language...
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- Peterson ZahPeterson ZahPeterson Zah was the first Navajo President and the last Chairman of the Navajo people. Since 1995, he has been working at Arizona State University as the Special Adviser to ASU President on American Indian Affairs...
, DinéDine-People named Dine:* Jim Dine , an American pop artist* S. S. Van Dine, an art critic and author* Tom Dine, an American government worker-Other meanings:* Beit ed-Dine, a town in Lebanon* Diné, name for the Navajo Nation in the Navajo language...
politician - Ofelia ZepedaOfelia ZepedaOfelia Zepeda is a Tohono O'odham poet and intellectual. Zepeda is a professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and is well known for her efforts in the preservation of her native language and promotion literacy in it. She is also known for her work as a consultant and advocate on...
, Tohono O'odhamTohono O'odhamThe Tohono O'odham are a group of Native American people who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico...
poet and intellectual - Zitkala-SaZitkala-SaGertrude Simmons Bonnin , better known by her pen name, Zitkala-Sa , was a Yankton Dakota writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist. She published in national magazines. With William F...
, Yankton Sioux writer and activist