Search Results

Deloria, Vine, Jr. (26 March 1933–13 November 2005), Native-American activist, writer, and lawyer, was born Vine Victor Deloria, Jr., near the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation in Martin, South Dakota, the son of Vine Victor Deloria, Sr., an Episcopalian priest and missionary who served as archdeacon and assistant secretary of Indian missions for the National Episcopal Church, and Barbara Eastburn. Vine Deloria, Sr., was the grandson of Saswe, whose Christian name was François Des Lauriers, the son of a French fur trader and a Native-American mother. Saswe (the Dakota pronunciation of François) was a noted Sioux shaman and the leader of a mixed-blood band that adopted Christianity. Saswe's son, the father of Vine Deloria, Sr., was the influential Sioux chief Philip Joseph Deloria, one of the first Native Americans to become an Episcopal priest....

Eastman, Charles Alexander (19 February 1858–08 January 1939), Indian author and reformer, was born near Redwood Falls, Minnesota, the son of Ite Wakanhdi Ota (Many Lightnings), a Wahpeton Sioux, and Wakantankanwin (Goddess), whose English name was Mary Nancy Eastman, the mixed-blood daughter of Captain Seth Eastman, the noted artist, and Wakan inajin win (Stands Sacred). Eastman’s mother died from complications as a result of his birth. His paternal grandmother and later his uncle raised him in the traditional ways of a Sioux boy. In 1862 he received the name Ohiyesa—meaning “the winner”—when his band defeated another in a lacrosse game. He used the name in conjunction with the English name he acquired later in his life....

Wauneka, Annie Dodge (10 April 1910–10 November 1997), Native-American activist, was born on the Navajo reservation near present-day Sawmill, Arizona, the daughter of Henry Chee Dodge, a rancher, and K'eehabah, one of Dodge's three wives in a tribe where polygamy was permitted. Chee Dodge, as her father was known, was a prestigious Navajo leader, the wealthiest man in the local community, and the first elected chairman of the Navajo Business Council (1922–1928) as well as the fifth chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council, (1941–1947). He was also fluent in English; he had worked as an interpreter on the reservation. Annie spent her early childhood tending sheep on her father's ranch and entered the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school at Fort Defiance, Arizona, at eight years of age. Four years later she went to the government boarding school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That school included students of many tribes and so all classes were conducted in English, in which Annie became as fluent as her father....

Winnemucca, Sarah (1844?–17 October 1891), spokeswoman for the Northern Paiute, was born near the sink of the Humboldt River in western Nevada, the daughter of Winnemucca, a Paiute chief, and Tuboitonie. In 1857 Chief Truckee, her maternal grandfather, arranged for Sarah and her younger sister Elma to live in the household of his friend, Major William Ormsby, a Virginian who managed a stage line at Mormon Station (Genoa). The girls worked at domestic chores and helped serve passengers at his stage stop. They were also companions to Ormsby’s only child, nine-year-old Lizzi. Here Sarah and Elma learned to read, write, and sing in English, picked up some Spanish phrases, and studied American history and the Bible. One year later the Ormsby family and the Paiute girls moved to Carson City, but in late September 1859 Sarah and Elma were suddenly called home by their father....