-Sherman Alexie: (born October 7, 1966) is a Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-American novelist, short story writer, poet, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington.
-Paula Gunn Allen: (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008) was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo and childhood years. She drew from its oral traditions for her fiction poetry and also wrote numerous essays on its themes. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary works and wrote two biographies of Native American women.
-Dennis Banks: (Ojibwe, April 12, 1937 – October 29, 2017) was a Native American activist, teacher, and author. He was a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, which he co-founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1968 to represent urban Indians.
-Adam Beach: (born November 11, 1972) is an Ojibwe-Canadian actor. He is best known for his roles as Victor in Smoke Signals, Frank Fencepost in Dance Me Outside, Tommy in Walker, Texas Ranger, Kickin' Wing in Joe Dirt, U.S. Marine Corporal Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers, Private Ben Yahzee in Windtalkers, Dr. Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, NYPD Detective Chester Lake in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Officer Jim Chee in the film adaptations of Skinwalkers, Coyote Waits, and A Thief of Time. He starred in the Canadian 2012-2014 series Arctic Air, and played Slipknot in the 2016 film Suicide Squad. He also played Squanto in Disney's Squanto: A Warrior's Tale. Most recently he has starred in Hostiles (2017) as Black Hawk, and the Netflix original film, Juanita (2019) as Jess Gardiner.
-Elias Boudinot: (born Gallegina Uwati [ᎦᎴᎩᎾ ᎤᏩᏘ], also known as Buck Watie) (1802 – June 22, 1839) was a writer, newspaper editor, and leader of the Cherokee Nation. He was a member of a prominent family, and was born and grew up in present-day Georgia. His Cherokee name reportedly means either 'male deer' or 'turkey.' Born to parents of mixed Cherokee and European ancestry and educated at a missionary school in Connecticut, he became one of several leaders who believed that acculturation was critical to Cherokee survival; he was influential in the period of removal to Indian Territory.
-Joseph Brant: (March 1743 – November 24, 1807) 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. Perhaps the Native American of his generation best known to the Americans and British, he met many of the most significant Anglo-American people of the age, including both George Washington and King George III.
-Ben Nighthorse Campbell: (born April 13, 1933) is a Cheyenne-American politician who served as a U.S. Representative from 1987 to 1993, and a U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1993 to 2005. He serves as one of forty-four members of the Council of Chiefs of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe. During his time in office, he was the only American Indian serving in the U.S. Congress.
-Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco): Chief Billy Bowlegs or Billy Bolek (Holata Micco, Halpatter-Micco, Halbutta Micco, and Halpuda Mikko in Seminole, meaning "Alligator Chief") (c. 1810 – 1859) was a leader of the Seminoles in Florida during the Second and Third Seminole Wars against the United States. One of the last Seminole leaders to resist, he eventually moved to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
-Black Elk: (December 1, 1863 – August 19, 1950)was a wičháša wakȟáŋ ("medicine man, holy man") and heyoka of the Oglala Lakota people. He was a second cousin of the war leader Crazy Horse.
-Black Hawk: Born Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, (1767 – October 3, 1838) was a band leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the Midwest of the United States. Although he had inherited an important historic sacred bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man, and a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.
-Black Kettle: (Cheyenne: Mo'ohtavetoo'o) (c. 1803 – November 27, 1868) was a prominent leader of the Southern Cheyenne during the American Indian Wars. Born to the Northern Só'taeo'o / Só'taétaneo'o band of the Northern Cheyenne in the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota, he later married into the Wotápio / Wutapai band (one mixed Cheyenne-Kiowa band with Lakota Sioux origin) of the Southern Cheyenne.
-Canonicus: (c. 1565 – June 4, 1647) was a chief of the Narragansett Indian tribe. He was wary of the colonial settlers, but he ultimately proved to be a firm friend of Roger Williams and other settlers.
-Captain Jack: Also known as Kientpaush and Captain Jack (c. 1837 – October 3, 1873), was a chief of the Modoc tribe of California and Oregon. He led a band from the Klamath Reservation to return to their lands in California, where they resisted return. From 1872 to 1873, their small force made use of the lava beds, holding off more numerous United States Army forces for months in the Modoc War.
-Cochise: (/koʊˈtʃiːs/; in Apache: Shi-ka-She or A-da-tli-chi – "having the quality or strength of an oak", after the whites called him "Cochise", the Apache adopted it as K'uu-ch'ish or Cheis "oak"; c. 1805 – June 8, 1874) was leader of the Chihuicahui local group of the Chokonen ("central" or "real" Chiricahua) and principal chief (or nantan) of the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache. A key war leader during the Apache Wars, he led an uprising against the U.S. government which began in 1861, and persisted until a peace treaty in 1872. Cochise County, Arizona is named after him
Cornplanter: (born between 1732 and 1746–February 18, 1836), known as Gaiänt'wakê (Gyantwachia - ″the planter″) or Kaiiontwa'kon (Kaintwakon - "By What One Plants") in the Seneca language and thus generally known as Cornplanter, was a Seneca war chief and diplomat of the Wolf clan. As a chief warrior, Cornplanter fought in the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. In both wars, the Seneca and three other Iroquois nations were allied with the British. After the war Cornplanter led negotiations with the United States and was a signatory of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784). He helped gain Iroquois neutrality during the Northwest Indian War.
-Crazy Horse: (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó in Standard Lakota Orthography, IPA: /tχaˈʃʊ̃kɛ witˈkɔ/, lit. 'His-Horse-Is-Crazy'; c. 1840 – September 5, 1877)[3] was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band in the 19th century. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by white American settlers on Native American territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the Black Hills War on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman Fight in 1866 in which he acted as a decoy and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people.
-Charles Curtis: (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was a Kaw-American attorney and Republican politician from Kansas, who was elected in 1928 on a ticket with Herbert Hoover, and served as the 31st vice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933.
-Delaware Prophet: Neolin (meaning the enlightened in Algonquian) was a prophet of the Lenni Lenape (also known as Delaware) from the area of Muskingum County, Ohio. His dates of birth and death are unknown. Inspired by a religious vision in 1761, Neolin proclaimed that Native Americans needed to reject the goods and lifestyles of the European settlers and return to a more traditional lifestyle, specifically rejecting alcohol, materialism, and polygamy. Neolin's most famous follower was Pontiac.
-Vine Deloria, Jr: (March 26, 1933 – November 13, 2005) was a Native American author, theologian, historian, and activist. He was widely known for his book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969), which helped attract national attention to Native American issues in the same year as the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement. From 1964 to 1967, he had served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, increasing tribal membership from 19 to 156. Beginning in 1977, he was a board member of the National Museum of the American Indian, which now has buildings in both New York City and Washington, DC.
-Michael Dorris: (January 30, 1945 – April 10, 1997) was an American novelist and scholar who was the first Chair of the Native American Studies program at Dartmouth College. His works include the novel A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987) and the memoir The Broken Cord (1989).
-Louise Erdrich: (born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American author, writer of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of the Anishinaabe (also known as Ojibwe and Chippewa).
-Chris Eyre: (born 1968), an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, is an American film director and producer who as of 2012 is chairman of the film department at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.
-Gall: (c. 1840–December 5, 1894), Lakota Phizí (Native American), was a battle leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota in the long war against the United States. He was also one of the commanders in the Battle of Little Bighorn.
-Geronimo: (Mescalero-Chiricahua: Goyaałé Athabaskan pronunciation: [kòjàːɬɛ́] "the one who yawns," June 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Apache tribe. From 1850 to 1886, Geronimo joined with members of three other Chiricahua Apache bands — the Tchihende, the Tsokanende and the Nednhi — to carry out numerous raids, as well as fight against Mexican and U.S. military campaigns in the northern Mexico states of Chihuahua and Sonora and in the southwestern American territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Geronimo's raids and related combat actions were a part of the prolonged period of the Apache–United States conflict, which started with American settlement in Apache lands following the end of the war with Mexico in 1848.
-Graham Greene: (born June 22, 1952) is a Canadian actor who has worked on stage, in film, and in TV productions in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Dances with Wolves (1990). Other notable films include Thunderheart (1992), Maverick (1994), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), The Green Mile (1999), Skins (2002), Transamerica (2005), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), Casino Jack (2010), Winter's Tale (2014), The Shack (2017) and Wind River (2017).
-Handsome Lake: (Cayuga language: Sganyadái:yo, Seneca language: Sganyodaiyo) (Θkanyatararí•yau• in Tuscarora) (1735 – 10 August 1815) was a Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois people. He was a half-brother to Cornplanter, a Seneca war chief.
-Hendrick Tejonihokarawa: (Tay yon’ a ho ga rau’ a),:p.2 also known as Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row and Hendrick Peters (1660 – c. 1735) was a pro-English leader of the Mohawk in the Province of New York in the early eighteenth century. He was one of the "Four Mohawk Kings" who went to London in 1710 to meet with Queen Anne and her court to mark a treaty with her. (A Mahican chief was mistakenly identified as Mohawk at the time; he represented a people located mostly east of Albany, New York.)
-Hendrick Theyanoguin: (c. 1691 – September 8, 1755), whose name had several spelling variations, was an important Mohawk leader and member of the Bear Clan; he resided at Canajoharie or the Upper Mohawk Castle in colonial New York. He was a Speaker for the Mohawk Council. Hendrick formed a close alliance with Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent of Indian affairs in North America.
-Hiawatha: (/ˌhaɪ.əˈwɒθə/ HY-ə-WOTH-ə, also US: /-ˈwɔːθə/ -WAW-thə; Onondaga: Haiëñ'wa'tha [hajẽʔwaʔtha]; 1525–?), also known as Ayenwathaaa or Aiionwatha, was a precolonial First Nations leader and co-founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. He was a leader of the Onondaga people, the Mohawk people, or both. According to some accounts, he was born an Onondaga but adopted into the Mohawks.
-Ishi: (c. 1861 – March 25, 1916) was the last known member of the Native American Yahi people from the present-day state of California in the United States. The rest of the Yahi (as well as many members of their parent tribe, the Yana) were killed in the California genocide in the 19th century. Ishi, who was widely acclaimed as the "last wild Indian" in America, lived most of his life isolated from modern American culture. In 1911, aged 50, he emerged near the foothills of Lassen Peak in Northern California.
-Chief Joseph: (or Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it in Americanist orthography), popularly known as Chief Joseph, Young Joseph, or Joseph the Younger (March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), was a leader of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce, a Native American tribe of the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States, in the latter half of the 19th century. He succeeded his father Tuekakas (Chief Joseph the Elder) in the early 1870s.
-Betty Mae Jumper: Also known as Potackee (April 27, 1923 – January 14, 2011) (Seminole) was the first and so far the only female chief of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. A nurse, she co-founded the tribe's first newspaper in 1956, the Seminole News, later replaced by The Seminole Tribune, for which she served as editor, winning a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native American Journalists Association. In 2001 she published her memoir, entitled A Seminole Legend.
-Keokuk: (circa 1780–June 1848) was a chief of the Sauk or Sac tribe in central North America, and for decades was one of the most recognized Native American leaders and noted for his accommodation with the U.S. government. Keokuk moved his tribe several times and always acted as an ardent friend of the American colonists. His policies were contrary to fellow Sauk chief Black Hawk, who led part of their band to defeat in the Black Hawk War, was later returned by U.S. forces to Keokuk's custody, and who died a decade before Keokuk.
-Winona LaDuke: (born August 18, 1959) is an American environmentalist, economist, and writer, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development. In a December 2018 interview she also described herself as an industrial hemp grower. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for Vice President as the nominee of the Green Party of the United States, on a ticket headed by Ralph Nader. She is the executive director of Honor the Earth, a Native environmental advocacy organization that played an active role in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
-Edmonia Lewis: (c. July 4, 1844 – September 17, 1907) was an American sculptor who worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. Born free in New York, she was the first woman of African-American and Native American heritage to achieve international fame and recognition as a sculptor in the fine arts world. Her work is known for incorporating themes relating to black people and indigenous peoples of the Americas into Neoclassical-style sculpture. She began to gain prominence in the United States during the American Civil War; at the end of the 19th century, she remained the only black woman who had participated in and been recognized to any degree by the American artistic mainstream. In 2002, the scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Edmonia Lewis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
-Sacheen Littlefeather: Marie Louise Cruz (born November 14, 1946), known as Sacheen Littlefeather, is an Apache actress and activist for Native American rights. On March 27, 1973, she represented Marlon Brando at the 45th Academy Awards to decline the Best Actor award for his performance in The Godfather. The favorite to win, Brando boycotted the ceremony in protest of Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans and to draw attention to the standoff at Wounded Knee. During her speech, the audience was divided between jeers and applause. Half-Native American (both White Mountain Apache and Yaqui) and half-white, Littlefeather had sought to become an actress. She was involved in the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz and learned about her heritage. After the Academy Award speech, she worked in hospice care, continued activism for a number of health-related and Native American issues, and produced films about Native Americans.
-Little Turtle: (Miami-Illinois: Mihšihkinaahkwa) (c.1747 — July 14, 1812), was a Sagamore (chief) of the Miami people, who became one of the most famous Native American military leaders. Historian Wiley Sword calls him "perhaps the most capable Indian leader then in the Old Northwest," although he later signed several treaties ceding land, which caused him to lose his leader status during the battles which became a prelude to the War of 1812. In the 1790s, Mihšihkinaahkwa led a confederation of native warriors to several major victories against U.S. forces in the Northwest Indian Wars, sometimes called "Little Turtle's War", particularly St. Clair's Defeat in 1791, wherein the confederation defeated General Arthur St. Clair, who lost 900 men in the most decisive loss by the U.S. Army against Native American forces.
-James Logan: Logan the Orator (c. 1723–1780) was a Cayuga orator and war leader born of one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. After his 1760s move to the Ohio Country, he became affiliated with the Mingo, a tribe formed from Seneca, Cayuga, Lenape and other remnant peoples. He took revenge for family members killed by Virginian Long knives in 1774 in what is known as the Yellow Creek Massacre. His actions against settlers on the frontier helped spark Dunmore's War later that year. Logan became known for a speech, later known as Logan's Lament, which he reportedly delivered after the war.
-Lone Wolf: Lone Wolf the Younger (ca. 1843-1923) was a Kiowa. Lone Wolf the Younger was a warrior named Mamay-day-te. In 1872, Mamay-day-te saved the son of Old Chief Lone Wolf, Gui-pah-gah, the Elder, during a skirmish with teamsters at Howard Wells, New Mexico. Two years later, the son of the Old Chief Lone Wolf, Gui-pah-gah, the Elder and his nephew were killed by American Troops. Mamay-day-te was among the raid avenging the deaths and counted his first coup during the attack. Old Chief Lone Wolf, Gui-pah-gah, the Elder gave his name to Mamay-day-te. Lone Wolf the Younger led the Kiowa resistance to United States governmental influence on the reservation, which culminated up to the Supreme Court case Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock.
-Mangas Coloradas: Mangas Coloradas or Mangus-Colorado (La-choy Ko-kun-noste, alias "Red Sleeve"), or Dasoda-hae ("He Just Sits There") (c. 1793 – January 18, 1863) was an Apache tribal chief and a member of the Mimbreño (Tchihende) division of the Central Apaches, whose homeland stretched west from the Rio Grande to include most of what is present-day southwestern New Mexico. He was the father-in-law of the Chiricahua (Tsokanende) Chief Cochise, the Mimbreño Chief Victorio and the Mescalero (Sehende) Chief Kutu-hala or Kutbhalla (probably to be identified with Caballero), and is regarded by many historians to be one of the most important Native American leaders of the 19th century due to his fighting achievements against the Mexicans and Americans.
-Wilma Mankiller: (Cherokee name: A-ji-luhsgi Asgaya-dihi, November 18, 1945 – April 6, 2010) was a Cherokee activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, she lived on her family's allotment in Adair County, Oklahoma, until the age of 11, when her family relocated to San Francisco as part of a federal government program to urbanize Native Americans. After high school, she married a well-to-do Ecuadorian and raised two daughters. Inspired by the social and political movements of the 1960s, Mankiller became involved in the Occupation of Alcatraz and later participated in the land and compensation struggles with the Pit River Tribe. For five years in the early 1970s, she was employed as a social worker, focusing mainly on children's issues.
-Maria Montoya Martinez (1887, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico – July 20, 1980, San Ildefonso Pueblo) was a Native American artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez (born Maria Poveka Montoya), her husband Julian, and other family members examined traditional Pueblo pottery styles and techniques to create pieces which reflect the Pueblo people’s legacy of fine artwork and crafts.
-Massasoit: Ousamequin (c. 1581 – 1661) was the sachem or leader of the Wampanoag tribe. The term Massasoit means Great Sachem.
-Russell Means: (November 10, 1939 – October 22, 2012) was an Oglala Lakota activist for the rights of American Indian people, libertarian political activist, actor, writer and musician, who became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) after joining the organization in 1968 and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage.
-Alexander McGillivray: Hoboi-Hili-Miko (December 15, 1750 – February 17, 1793), was a Muscogee (Creek) leader. The son of a Muscogee mother and a Scottish father, he had skills no other Creek of his day had: he was not only literate but educated, and he knew the "white" world and merchandise trading well. These gave him prestige, especially with European-Americans, who were glad to finally find a Creek leader they could talk to and deal with. (Prior to contact with Europeans, the Creek did not have leaders or rulers in the European sense.) He used his role as link between the two worlds to his advantage, not always fairly, and became the richest Creek of his time.
-William McIntosh: (1775 – April 30, 1825), also known as Tustunnuggee Hutke (White Warrior), was one of the most prominent chiefs of the Creek Nation between the turn of the nineteenth century and his execution in 1825. He was a chief of Coweta town and commander of a mounted police force. He became a planter who owned slaves, an inn, and a ferry business.
-Miantonomo: (1600? – August 1643), also spelled Miantonomo, Miantonomah or Miantonomi, was a chief of the Narragansett people of New England Indians.
-Billy Mills: (born June 30, 1938), also known as Tamakoce Te'Hila, is an Oglala Lakota former track and field athlete who won a gold medal in the 10,000 meter run (6.2 mi) at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. His 1964 victory is considered one of the greatest Olympic upsets because he was a virtual unknown going into the event. He was the first non-European to win the Olympic event and remains the only winner from the Americas. A United States Marine, Billy Mills is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
-N. Scott Momaday: (born February 27, 1934) is a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and is considered the first major work of the Native American Renaissance. His follow-up work The Way to Rainy Mountain blended folklore with memoir. Momaday received the National Medal of Arts in 2007 for his work's celebration and preservation of indigenous oral and art tradition. He holds twenty honorary degrees from colleges and universities, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
-Samson Occom: (1723 – July 14, 1792; also misspelled as Occum and Alcom) was a member of the Mohegan nation, from near New London, Connecticut, who became a Presbyterian cleric. Occom was the first Native American to publish his writings in English, and also helped found several settlements, including what ultimately became known as the Brothertown Indians. Together with the missionary John Eliot, Occom became one of the foremost missionaries who cross-fertilised Native American communities with Christianized European culture.
-Opechancanough: (/oʊpəˈtʃænkənoʊ/) or Opchanacanough (1554–1646) was a tribal chief within the Powhatan Confederacy of what is now Virginia in the United States, and its paramount chief from sometime after 1618 until his death in 1646. His name meant "He whose Soul is White" in the Algonquian Powhatan language. He was the younger brother (or possibly half-brother) of Chief Powhatan, who had organized and dominated the Powhatan Confederacy.
-Osceola: (1804 – January 30, 1838, Asi-yahola in Creek), named Billy Powell at birth in Alabama, became an influential leader of the Seminole people in Florida. Of mixed parentage, including Creek, Scottish, African American, and English, he was considered born to his mother's people in the Creek matrilineal kinship system. He was reared by her in the Creek tradition. When he was a child, they migrated to Florida with other Red Stick refugees after their group's defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars. There they became part of what was known as the Seminole people.
-Quanah Parker: (Comanche kwana, "smell, odor") (c. 1845 or 1852 – February 20, 1911) was a war leader of the Quahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was born into the Nokoni ("Wanderers") band, the son of Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American, who had been kidnapped as a child and assimilated into the tribe. Following the apprehension of several Kiowa chiefs in 1871, Quanah emerged as a dominant figure in the Red River War, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. With European-Americans deliberately hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into extinction, Quanah eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Quahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
-Leonard Peltier: (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa, who is also of Lakota and Dakota descent.[1] He is a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM). 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 (FBI) agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
-Pocahontas: (US: /ˌpoʊkəˈhɒntəs/, UK: /ˌpɒk-/; born Matoaka, known as Amonute, c. 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American[2][3][4] woman notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief[2] of a network of tributary tribes in the Tsenacommacah, encompassing the Tidewater region of Virginia.
-Pontiac: Obwandiyag (c. 1714/20 – April 20, 1769) was an Odawa war chief known for his role in the war named for him, from 1763 to 1766 leading Native Americans in a struggle against British military occupation of the Great Lakes region. It followed the British victory in the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War. Pontiac's importance in the war that bears his name has been debated. Nineteenth-century accounts portrayed him as the mastermind and leader of the revolt, but some subsequent scholars argued that his role had been exaggerated. Historians today generally view him as an important local leader who influenced a wider movement that he did not command.
-Pope: (died 1692, San Juan Pueblo New Spain [now in New Mexico, U.S.]), Tewa Pueblo who led an all-Indian revolt in 1680 against the Spanish invaders in what is now the southwestern United States, driving them out of Santa Fe and temporarily restoring the old Pueblo way of life.
-Powhatan: (/ˌpaʊhəˈtæn,ˈhætən/)[1] people (sometimes Powhatans; also spelled Powatan) may refer to any of the Indigenous Algonquian people that are traditionally from eastern Virginia.[2] All of the Powhatan groups descend from the Powhatan Confederacy. In some instances, The Powhatan may refer to one of the leaders of the people. This is most commonly the case in historical writings by the English.[3] The Powhatans have also been known as Virginia Algonquians, as the Powhatan language is an eastern-Algonquian language, also known as Virginia Algonquian. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 Powhatan people in eastern Virginia, when the English colonized Jamestown in 1607.[4]
-Red Cloud: (Lakota: Maȟpíya Lúta) (1822 – December 10, 1909) was one of the most important leaders of the Oglala Lakota from 1868 to 1909. He was one of the most capable American Indian opponents that the United States Army faced in its mission to occupy the western territories, leading a successful campaign in 1866–68 known as Red Cloud's War over control of the Powder River Country in northeastern Wyoming and southern Montana. The largest action of the war was the Fetterman Fight, with 81 Army soldiers killed, and was the worst military defeat suffered by the army on the Great Plains until the Battle of the Little Bighorn ten years later.
-Red Jacket: (known as Otetiani in his youth and Sagoyewatha [Keeper Awake] Sa-go-ye-wa-tha as an adult because of his oratorical skills) (c. 1750–January 20, 1830) was a Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan, based in western New York.[1] On behalf of his nation, he negotiated with the new United States after the American Revolutionary War, when the Seneca as British allies were forced to cede much land following the defeat of the British; he signed the Treaty of Canandaigua (1794). He helped secure some Seneca territory in New York state, although most of his people had migrated to Canada for resettlement after the Paris Treaty.
-Ben Reifel: Known as Lone Feather (September 19, 1906 – January 2, 1990) 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. He ran for the US Congress from the East River region of South Dakota, and was elected as the first Lakota to serve in the House of Representatives. He served five terms as a Republican United States Congressman from the (now obsolete) First District.
-Louis Riel: (/ˈluːiriˈɛl/; French: [lwi ʁjɛl]; 22 October 1844 – 16 November 1885) was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political leader of the Métis people of the Canadian Prairies.[1] He led two rebellions against the government of Canada and its first post-Confederation prime minister, John A. Macdonald. Riel sought to preserve Métis rights and culture as their homelands in the Northwest came progressively under the Canadian sphere of influence. Over the decades, he has been made a folk hero by Francophones, Catholic nationalists, native rights activists, and the New Left student movement. Arguably, Riel has received more scholarly attention than any other figure in Canadian history.[2]
-Robbie Robertson: Jaime Royal "Robbie" Robertson,[1] OC (born July 5, 1943), is a Canadian musician,[2] songwriter, film composer, producer, actor, and author. Robertson is best known for his work as lead guitarist and primary songwriter for The Band, and for his career as a solo recording artist. Robertson was born Jaime Royal Klegerman[citation needed] on July 5, 1943. He was an only child. His mother was Rosemarie Dolly Chrysler, born February 6, 1922,[5] a Cayuga and Mohawk[6] woman who was raised on the Six Nations Reserve southwest of Toronto, Ontario. Chrysler lived with an aunt in the Cabbagetown neighborhood, and worked at a jewellery plating factory. It was at the factory that she met James Patrick Robertson. They married in 1942.[7]
-Will Rogers: (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American stage and motion picture actor, vaudeville performer, cowboy, humorist, newspaper columnist, and social commentator from Oklahoma. He was a Cherokee citizen born in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory.
-John Ross: (Cherokee: ᎫᏫᏍᎫᏫ, romanized: guwisguwi) (October 3, 1790 – August 1, 1866), (meaning in Cherokee: "Mysterious Little White Bird"), was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828–1866, serving longer in this position than any other person. Described as the Moses of his people,[1] Ross influenced the Indian nation through such tumultuous events as the relocation to Indian Territory and the American Civil War.
-Sacajawea: (/səˌkɑːɡəˈwiːə/; also Sakakawea or Sacajawea; May 1788 – December 20, 1812) was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, at age 16, met and helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory.
-Buffy Sainte-Marie: (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, c. February 20, 1941) is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire also includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism.
-Samoset: (also Somerset, c. 1590–1653) was an Abenaki sagamore and the first American Indian to make contact with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony. He startled the colonists on March 16, 1621 by walking into Plymouth Colony and greeting them in English, which he had begun to learn from fishermen frequenting the waters of Maine.
-Seattle: (c. 1786 – June 7, 1866) was a Suquamish and Duwamish chief.[2] A leading figure among his people, he pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, forming a personal relationship with "Doc" Maynard. The city of Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, was named after him. A widely publicized speech arguing in favor of ecological responsibility and respect of Native Americans' land rights had been attributed to him; however what he actually said has been lost through translation and rewriting.
-Sequoyah: (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ Ssiquoya, as he signed his name, or ᏎᏉᏯ Se-quo-ya, as is often spelled in Cherokee; named in English George Gist or George Guess) (c.1770–1843), was an American and Cherokee polymath. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was one of the very few times in recorded history that a member of a pre-literate people created an original, effective writing system (another example being Shong Lue Yang). After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. Their literacy rate quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers.
-Shawnee Prophet: (/tənskwɒtɒweɪ/;[stress?] also called Tenskatawa, Tenskwatawah, Tensquatawa or Lalawethika) (January 1775 – November 1836) was a Native American religious and political leader of the Shawnee, known as the Prophet or the Shawnee Prophet. He was a younger brother of Tecumseh, a leader of the Shawnee. In his early years Tenskwatawa was given the name Lalawithika ("He Makes a Loud Noise", "The Noise Maker", or "The Rattle") by the Red Sticks, a faction of the Muscogee.
-Leslie Marmon Silko: (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is an American writer. A Laguna Pueblo Indian woman, she is one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.
-Jay Silverheels: (born Harold Jay Smith, May 26, 1912 – March 5, 1980) was a Mohawk actor and athlete. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the faithful Native American companion of the Lone Ranger in the long-running American western television series The Lone Ranger.
-Sitting Bull: (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake [tˣaˈtˣə̃ka ˈi.jɔtakɛ] in Standard Lakota orthography, also nicknamed Húŋkešni [ˈhʊ̃kɛʃni] or "Slow") was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance to United States government policies. He was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him, at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement.
-Smohalla: (Dreamer) (c. 1815 - 1895) was a Wanapum nineteenth-century dreamer-prophet associated with the Dreamers movement among Native American people in the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia Plateau region.
-Squanto: Tisquantum (/tɪsˈkwɒntəm/; c. 1585 (±10 years?) – late November 1622 O.S.), more commonly known by the diminutive variant Squanto (/ˈskwɒntoʊ/), was a member of the Patuxet tribe best known for being an early liaison between the native populations in Southern New England and the Mayflower Pilgrims who made their settlement at the site of Squanto's former summer village.
-Wes Studi: (Cherokee: ᏪᏌ ᏍᏚᏗ; born December 17, 1947) is a Cherokee American actor and film producer who has won critical acclaim and awards, particularly for his portrayal of Native Americans in film. He has appeared in Academy Award-winning films, such as Dances with Wolves (1990) and The Last of the Mohicans (1992), and in the Academy Award-nominated films Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) and The New World (2005). He is also known for portraying Sagat in Street Fighter (1994). Other films he has appeared in are Hostiles, Heat, Mystery Men, Avatar, A Million Ways to Die in the West, and the television series Penny Dreadful. In 2019, he received an Academy Honorary Award, becoming the first Native American actor to receive an Oscar.
-Maria Tallchief: (Osage family name: Ki He Kah Stah Tsa; January 24, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American ballerina. She was considered America's first major prima ballerina,[3] and was the first Native American to hold the rank.
-Tecumseh: (/tɪˈkʌmsə,tɪˈkʌmsi/ ti-KUM-sə, ti-KUM-see; March 1768 – October 5, 1813) was a Native American Shawnee warrior and chief, who became the primary leader of a large, multi-tribal confederacy in the early 19th century. Born in the Ohio Country (present-day Ohio), and growing up during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War, Tecumseh was exposed to warfare and envisioned the establishment of an independent Native American nation east of the Mississippi River under British protection. He worked to recruit additional members to his tribal confederacy from the southern United States.
-Catherine Tekakwitha: Tekakwitha, baptized as Catherine and informally known as Lily of the Mohawks (1656 – April 17, 1680), is a Catholic saint who was an Algonquin–Mohawk laywoman. Born in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, on the south side of the Mohawk River, she contracted smallpox in an epidemic; her family died and her face was scarred. She converted to Catholicism at age nineteen, when she was renamed Kateri, baptized in honor of Saint Catherine of Siena. Refusing to marry, she left her village and moved for the remaining five years of her life to the Jesuit mission village of Kahnawake, south of Montreal in New France, now Canada.
-Jim Thorpe: (Sac and Fox (Sauk): Wa-Tho-Huk, translated as "Bright Path"; May 22 or 28, 1887 – March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe became the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, and played American football (collegiate and professional), professional baseball, and basketball. He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the amateurism rules that were then in place. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals.
-John Trudell: (February 15, 1946 – December 8, 2015) was a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz. During most of the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
-Uncas: (c.1588—c.1683) was a sachem of the Mohegans who made the Mohegans the leading regional Indian tribe in lower Connecticut, through his alliance with the English colonists in New England against other Indian tribes.
-Victorio: (Bidu-ya, Beduiat; ca. 1825–October 14, 1880) was a warrior and chief of the Warm Springs band of the Tchihendeh (or Chihenne, usually called Mimbreño) division of the central Apaches in what is now the American states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.
-Nancy Ward: (Cherokee: ᎾᏅᏰᎯ: "One who goes about"), known in English as Nancy Ward (c. 1738 – 1822 or 1824), was a Beloved Woman and political leader of the Cherokee. She advocated for peaceful coexistence with European-Americans and, late in life, spoke out for Cherokee retention of tribal lands. She is also credited with the introduction of dairy products to the Cherokee economy.
-William Weatherford: known as Red Eagle (ca. 1781–March 24, 1824), was a Creek chief of the Upper Creek towns who led many of the Red Sticks actions in the Creek War (1813–1814) against Lower Creek towns and against allied forces of the United States.
-Wovoka: (c. 1856 - September 20, 1932), also known as Jack Wilson, was the Paiute religious leader who founded a second episode of the Ghost Dance movement. Wovoka means "cutter" or "wood cutter" in the Northern Paiute language.
