Mankiller, Wilma Pearl, 1945-2010

Wilma Pearl Mankiller (Cherokee: ᎠᏥᎳᏍᎩ ᎠᏍᎦᏯᏗᎯ, romanized: Atsilasgi Asgayadihi; November 18, 1945 – April 6, 2010) was a Native American (Cherokee Nation) 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.

Returning to Oklahoma in the fall of 1976, Mankiller was hired by the Cherokee Nation as an economic stimulus coordinator. With her expertise at preparing documentation, she became a successful grant writer, and by the early 1980s was directing the newly created Community Development Department of the Cherokee Nation. As Director she designed and supervised innovative community projects allowing rural citizens to identify their own challenges and, through their labor, participate in solving them. Her project in Bell, Oklahoma, was featured in the movie The Cherokee Word for Water, directed by Charlie Soap and Tim Kelly. In 2015, the movie was selected as the top American Indian film of the past 40 years by the American Indian Film Institute.[1] Her project in Kenwood received the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Certificate of National Merit.

Her management ability came to the notice of the incumbent Principal Chief, Ross Swimmer, who invited her to run as his deputy in the 1983 tribal elections. When the duo won, she became the first elected woman to serve as Deputy Chief of the Cherokee Nation. In 1985, when Swimmer took a position in the federal administration of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she was elevated to Principal Chief, serving until 1995. During her administration, the Cherokee government built new health clinics, created a mobile eye-care clinic, established ambulance services, and created early education, adult education and job training programs. She developed revenue streams, including factories, retail stores, restaurants and bingo operations, while establishing self-governance, allowing the tribe to manage its own finances.

When she retired from politics, Mankiller returned to her activist role as an advocate working to improve the image of Native Americans and combat the misappropriation of native heritage, by authoring books including a bestselling autobiography, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People, and giving numerous lectures on health care, tribal sovereignty, women's rights and cancer awareness. Throughout her life, she had serious health problems, including polycystic kidney disease, myasthenia gravis, lymphoma and breast cancer, and needed two kidney transplants. She died in 2010 from pancreatic cancer, and was honored with many local, state and national awards, including the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 2021 it was announced that Mankiller's likeness would appear on the quarter-dollar coin[2] as a part of the United States Mint's "American Women Quarters" program.[3]

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was born on November 18, 1945, in the Hastings Indian Hospital in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, to Clara Irene (née Sutton) and Charley Mankiller.[4][5] Her father was a full-blooded Cherokee,[4][6] whose ancestors had been forced to relocate to Indian Territory from Tennessee over the Trail of Tears in the 1830s. The small house had no electricity or plumbing[20] and they lived in "extreme poverty".[10] The family hunted and fished, maintaining a vegetable garden to feed themselves. They also grew peanuts and strawberries, which they sold.[14] Mankiller went to school through the fifth grade in a three-room schoolhouse, in Rocky Mountain.[21][22] The family spoke both English and Cherokee at home; even Mankiller's mother spoke Cherokee.[21] Her mother canned food and used flour sacks to make clothes for the children,[14][21] whom she immersed in Cherokee heritage. Though they joined the Baptist church, the children were wary of white congregants and customs, preferring to attend tribal ceremonial gatherings.[23] Family elders taught the children traditional stories.[24]

n 1964, a small group of Red Power activists occupied Alcatraz Island for a few hours.[40][41] In the late 1960s, a group of students from the University of California at Berkeley, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, along with students at San Francisco State, began protesting against the Vietnam War and in favor of civil rights for ethnic minorities and women.[42][43] Among the groups that sprang up in the period was the American Indian Movement (AIM), which in San Francisco was centered around the activities at the San Francisco Indian Center.[43] Also meeting there was the United Bay Indian Council, which operated as an umbrella organization for 30 separate groups representing people of different tribal affiliations. In October 1969, the Center burned, and the loss of their meeting place created a bond between administrators and student activists, who combined their efforts to bring the plight of urban Native Americans to the public eye with the reoccupation of Alcatraz.[44]

The occupation inspired Mankiller to become involved in civil rights activism.[40][45] Prior to the November takeover of the island, she had not been involved in either AIM or the United Bay Council. She began to meet with other Native Americans who had participated in the Indian Center, becoming active in the groups supporting the Occupation.[46] While she did visit Alcatraz, most of her work focused on fundraising and support, gathering supplies of blankets, food and water for those on the island.[47] Soon after the Occupation began, Charley Mankiller was diagnosed with kidney disease, which caused Mankiller to discover that she shared polycystic kidney disease with her father.[48] In between her activism, school and family obligations, she spent as much time with him as she was able.[49] The Occupation lasted 19 months,[50] and during that time, Mankiller learned organizational skills and how to do paralegal research.[45] She had been encouraged by other activists to continue her studies, and began planning a career.[45][39]

Social work
On her father's death in 1971, the Mankiller family returned to Oklahoma for his burial. When she returned to California, she transferred to San Francisco State University[45] in 1972 and began to focus her classes on social welfare.[51] Against her husband's wishes, she bought her own car and began to seek independence, taking her daughters to Native American events along the West Coast.[52] On her travels, she met members of the Pit River Tribe in Northern California, near Burney, and joined their campaign for compensation with the Indian Claims Commission and Pacific Gas and Electric Company for lands illegally taken from the tribe during the California Gold Rush.[53][54][55] Over the next five years, she assisted the tribe in raising funds for its legal defense and helped prepare documentation for their claim, gaining experience in international and treaty law.[56]

Closer to home, Mankiller founded East Oakland's Native American Youth Center, where she served as director. Locating a building, she called for volunteers to paint and help draft educational programs to help youth learn about their heritage, enjoying overwhelming support from the community.[57] In 1974, Mankiller and Olaya divorced and she moved with her two daughters to Oakland. Taking a position as a social worker with the Urban Indian Resource Center, she worked on programs conducting research on child abuse and neglect,[58] foster care, and adoption of Native children. Recognizing that most indigenous children were placed with families with no knowledge of Native traditions, she worked on legislation with other staff and attorneys to prevent children from being removed from their culture. The law, which eventually passed as the Indian Child Welfare Act, made it illegal to place Native children in non-Native families.[59] In 1976, Mankiller's mother returned to Oklahoma, prompting Mankiller to move as well with her two daughters.[60] Initially, she was unable to find work and moved back to California for six months.[61] By the fall, she was back in Oklahoma,[62] and built a small house near her mother's in Mankiller Flats.[63] After doing volunteer work for the Cherokee Nation,[64] Mankiller was hired in 1977 to work on a program for young Cherokees to study environmental science.[61][65] That same year she enrolled in additional classes at Flaming Rainbow University in Stilwell, Oklahoma, completing her Bachelor of Science degree in social sciences with an emphasis on Indian Affairs, thanks to a correspondence course under a program offered by the Union for Experimental Colleges in Washington, D.C.[66][67][68] She enrolled in graduate courses in community development at the University of Arkansas, in Fayetteville,[69][70] while continuing to work in the tribal offices as an economic stimulus coordinator.[71] She worked on home health care, the Indian child welfare protocols, language services, a senior citizens program and a youth shelter.[72]
In 1983, Mankiller, a Democrat, was selected as a running mate by Ross Swimmer, a Republican, in a bid for Swimmer's third consecutive term as principal chief.[83] Though they both wanted the tribe to become more self-sufficient, Swimmer felt the path was through developing tribal businesses, like hotels and agricultural enterprises. Mankiller wanted to focus on small rural communities, improving housing and health care.[84] Their differences on policy were not a key problem in the election, but Mankiller's gender was. She was surprised by the sexism she faced, as in traditional Cherokee society, families and clans were organized matrilineally.[85][86] Though traditionally women had not held titled positions in Cherokee government, they had a women's council which wielded considerable influence, and were responsible for training the tribal chief.[85] She received death threats, her tires were slashed, and a billboard with her likeness was burned. Swimmer nevertheless remained steadfast.[87][88][89][Notes 3] Swimmer won reelection against Perry Wheeler by a narrow margin, on the strength of absentee voters. Mankiller also won by absentee voters in a run-off election for the deputy chief post against Agnes Cowen[97] and became the first woman elected deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation.[89] Wheeler and Cowen demanded a recount and filed a suit with the Cherokee Judicial Appeals Tribunal and U. S. District Court alleging voting irregularities. Both tribal and federal courts ruled against Wheeler and Cowen.[98] In 1985, Chief Swimmer resigned when appointed assistant secretary of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs.[69] Mankiller succeeded him as the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation,[Notes 4] when she was sworn into office on December 5, 1985.