Wilma Mankiller was the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation. Her administration founded the Cherokee Nation Community Development Department to improve the lives of Native Americans.
Mankiller was born in 1945 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. Her great-grandfather was one of over 16,000 Native Americans and enslaved Africans who were ordered by President Andrew Jackson to walk from their homes in the Southeast to the new “Indian Territory” in Oklahoma in the 1830’s. The journey was known as the Trail of Tears as at least 4,000 died due to hunger, disease, poor weather conditions and abuse from U.S. soldiers. Mankiller’s family lived on the Mankiller Flats near Rocky Mountain, until they moved to California as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Indian Relocation Program. In San Francisco the family were unable to find employment and the relocation money they were promised did not arrive and they struggled financially.
After graduating high school, Mankiller took a job as a clerk. In 1969, the San Francisco State student and Mohawk Richard Oakes and other Native Americans of different tribes occupied an abandoned prison on Alcatraz Island to bring attention to the mistreatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. The occupation inspired Mankiller into action, and she became involved with San Francisco’s Indian Centre. Craving her own independence, Mankiller returned to education, attending Skyline College then San Francisco State University before returning to Oklahoma to attend Flaming Rainbow University in Stilwell. In 1976 she found work as a community co-ordinator in the Cherokee tribal headquarters while continuing her education at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. During her commute to University, she was hit by car and seriously injured, with many believing she would not survive. Mankiller was able to recover, and in 1980 would successfully battle the muscle disease, myasthenia gravis.
In 1983, Mankiller successfully ran for deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation despite many criticising her running simply because she was a woman. She served in the position for two years. In 1985, she was named the tribe’s principal chief, becoming the first woman to serve in the role for the Cherokee people. She later won elections in 1987 and 1991 to remain in post. Mankiller led community development projects to encourage men and women to work collaboratively and included establishing tribally owned businesses, improving infrastructure and building a hydroelectric facility. Mankiller was also able to improve federal-tribal negotiations, and paved the way for the government-to-government relationship the Cherokee Nation and the U.S. Federal Government now have. Her administration founded the Cherokee Nation Community Development Department, which saw an increase in Cherokee Nation citizens from 55,000 to 156,000, reinstated the Sequoyah High School and created new schools, job-training centres, and health clinics. In 1995, she decided not to seek another term as principal chief due to health reasons.
In 1991, Mankiller received an honorary degree from Dartmouth College and after finishing her last term as chief, became a guest professor at the College. She continued to play a role in the public eye, and gave lectures around the country. She also wrote, and her best-selling autobiography Mankiller: A Chief and Her People was published in 1993, followed by Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women (2004), featuring a foreword by Gloria Steinem. In 2010, she died at her home in Adair County, Oklahoma. 1,200 people attended her memorial service at the Cherokee National Cultural Grounds in Tahlequah.
Mankiller was the recipient of many honours, including Ms. Magazine’s Woman of the Year (1987), the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame, the Elizabeth Blackwell Award, John W. Gardner Leadership Award, Independent Sector, and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame a year later. She provided a role model for young girls, and stated that “Prior to my election, young Cherokee girls would never have thought that they might grow up and become chief.”