From fierce female warriors to brave political activists, take a look at some of the most powerful and influential Native American women throughout history.
A rare photograph of Buffalo Calf Road Woman, the Native American woman who knocked Custer off his horse., Wikimedia Commons
tories about Native American women have long lingered in the shadows. Even accounts of well-known figures like Pocahontas are misunderstood. In fact, “Pocahontas” wasn’t even her real name.
Lesser known to history are women like Susan La Flesche Picotte, who went to medical school to treat her people, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, who knocked George Armstrong Custer off his horse, and Wilma Mankiller, who became the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Facing oppression, racism, and sexism, the nine Native American women featured below fought to make the world a better place. They didn’t always succeed — but they did help clear a path for the generations that followed.
As Wilma Mankiller once put it: “Every step I take forward is on a path paved by strong Indian women before me.”
Susan La Flesche Picotte: The First Native American Woman To Receive A Medical Degree
Susan La Flesche Picotte became one of the few women of her day to go to medical school. (Photo in the public domain)
When Susan La Flesche Picotte was a girl, her father asked her and her sisters: “Do you always want to be simply called those Indians or do you want to go to school and be somebody in the world?”
Born to the Omaha people in 1865, La Flesche Picotte grew up in a world full of fracturing tribal traditions. Her father led one faction of the tribe, which believed that the Omaha needed to start accepting some white customs. The other faction, led by medicine men and traditionalists, called their rivals’ log cabins “The Village of the Make-Believe White Men.”
But La Flesche Picotte saw the need for some modernization. And she saw the need for a Native American to lead it. As a child, she remembered sitting with an old, sick woman who was waiting for a white doctor to treat her. Though he promised to come, he never did — and the woman died.
“It was only an Indian,” La Flesche Picotte recalled, “and it not matter.”
Determined to make a difference, La Flesche Picotte enrolled in the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 1886, she took the train across the country at age 21 so that she could become a doctor. Few women — of any race — in the late 19th century took such a step. At the time, male doctors had claimed that academic stress could make women infertile.
Undeterred, La Flesche Picotte graduated first in her class and became the first Native American woman to earn a medical degree. Though she was encouraged to practice on the East Coast, she chose to return home to the Omaha Reservation to treat vulnerable patients there. Before long, she became the primary physician for more than 1,200 people.
Sometimes, the work could be taxing. La Flesche Picotte often traveled for hours in inclement conditions to reach people, some of whom distrusted her unfamiliar diagnoses. But La Flesche Picotte kept at it — treating both Native American and white patients — and even raised enough money to build a modern hospital in the reservation town of Walthill, Nebraska.
She died in 1915, eulogized by both local priests and members of the Omaha.
Buffalo Calf Road Woman: The Native American Woman Who Knocked Custer Off His Horse
As the Battle of the Little Bighorn raged between U.S. troops and Native Americans in Montana, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer suddenly found himself facing a female fighter. Her name was Buffalo Calf Road Woman.
Not much is known about the woman who charged toward Custer, knocking him off his horse and quite possibly striking the final blow that killed him. Buffalo Calf Road Woman — also called Buffalo Calf Trail Woman or Brave Woman — was likely born in the 1850s to the Northern Cheyenne. She married a man named Black Coyote and had two children with him.
She first distinguished herself about a week before the Battle of the Little Bighorn during the Battle of the Rosebud. Then, Buffalo Calf Road Woman insisted on riding alongside male warriors as they set out to confront U.S. troops. Despite some grumbling from other fighters, they let her join.
During the battle, she sprang into action when she noticed that U.S. soldiers had trapped her brother, Chief Comes in Sight, in a gully. She rode straight into the melee, grabbed her brother, and pulled him onto her horse.
Her bravery impressed the other warriors, who dubbed the conflict “The Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother.” But Buffalo Calf Road Woman’s true claim to fame came about a week later, as the Northern Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux, and Arapaho faced off against Custer and his troops.
According to Wallace Bearchum, the Director of Tribal Services for the Northern Cheyenne, Buffalo Calf Road Woman acted bravely during the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Fighting “out in the open,” she never took cover during the conflict, and “she stayed on her horse the entire time.”
When Buffalo Calf Road Woman spotted Custer, she raised a club — and charged him. And according to the tribe’s oral history, her blow sent him flying off his horse, a move which may have led to his death.
Though the Cheyenne won the battle, they lost the larger war. Buffalo Calf Road Woman spent the rest of her short life fighting off attacks and seeking safety with her tribe. She died in 1879, likely of diphtheria.
Her story remained untold for over a century — but the Cheyenne never forgot about her. Fearing retribution, they kept their silence about the Battle of the Little Bighorn until 2005. Then, they told the world about Buffalo Calf Road Woman and the blow that may have very well killed Custer.
Lyda Conley: The First Native American Woman To Argue Before The Supreme Court
Lyda Conley boldly argued before the Supreme Court to save her tribe’s ancestral burial ground. (Public Domain photo)
When Eliza “Lyda” Burton Conley realized that white developers wanted to snatch up her tribe’s ancestral burial ground, she resolved to defend it. Conley got a law degree — no small feat for a woman in 1902 — and physically guarded the cemetery’s entrance with her musket.
“I will go to Washington and personally defend [the cemetery],” Conley avowed. “No lawyer could plead for the grave of my mother as I could, no lawyer could have the heart interest in the case that I have.”
Born to a mother from the Wyandotte tribe and an English farmer around 1868, Conley grew up in Kansas. She later learned that some developers wanted to repurpose the Huron Indian Cemetery, located in Kansas City, Kansas. As the city grew, it had become a valuable piece of land.
Conley had a personal stake in the matter. Her family had buried her mother and one of her sisters in the cemetery. But Conley also believed that an 1855 federal treaty with the Wyandotte protected the land from development.
Determined to make her case, she enrolled as one of the only women at the Kansas City School of Law and gained admission to the Missouri Bar in 1902. When Congress approved legislation to sell the land and move the bodies buried there four years later, Conley was ready to fight back.
First, she filed an injunction against the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and Indian Commissioners in the U.S. District Court. Then, Conley and one of her sisters set up camp in front of the cemetery. Armed with a gun, they built a shack called “Fort Conley” to discourage any potential trespassers.
The battle went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Conley became the first Native American woman to argue a case before the justices. They listened to her, but they ultimately sided with the developers.
Nevertheless, Conley continued to fight. She spent most of her time at the cemetery — until she was murdered during a robbery in 1946. After that, others picked up the baton, inspired by her devotion to the cause.
In 1971, the Huron Indian Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places. And in 2017, it was designated a National Historic Landmark, preventing any development in the future. Lyda Conley didn’t live to see it, but the cemetery — where she too was buried — was saved.
Sarah Winnemucca: The Paiute Woman Who Stood Up For Her People
Sarah Winnemucca was the first Native American woman to write an English-language autobiography. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Outraged at how white settlement had devastated her people, Sarah Winnemucca began to speak out. She traveled America in the 1880s and wrote a fiery autobiography called Life Among the Paiutes in 1883.
“For shame! For shame!” Winnemucca wrote. “You dare to cry out Liberty, when you hold us in places against our will, driving us from place to place as if we were beasts.”
Born Thocmetony (Shell Flower) to the Northern Paiute people, Winnemucca spent most of her life straddling the line between the “white” world and the “Native” world. She grew up traveling with her tribe in modern-day Nevada and Oregon, but she later attended a convent school in San Jose, California — until furious white parents forced her to leave.
Afterward, Winnemucca accompanied her family to their new reservation near Pyramid Lake in Nevada. Unfamiliar with the dry landscape — and victims of thefts by government agents who stole their aid money — many Paiutes starved to death. Winnemucca, who had mastered English from an early age, attempted to act as an interpreter for her people.
But it was tough work. Not only did Winnemucca have to work with cruel government agents like William V. Rinehart, but many of her own people grew to distrust her. Meanwhile, things for the Paiutes seemed to get worse and worse. So Winnemucca decided to speak out on their behalf.
Starting in San Francisco, Sarah Winnemucca traveled around the country and spoke her mind. Wearing traditional clothing and billing herself as a “princess,” Winnemucca described the hardships forced upon her people.
“I would be the first Indian woman who ever spoke before white people,” Winnemucca told a reporter, “and they don’t know what the Indians have got to stand sometimes.”
Her fearless activism eventually caught the eye of members of the Transcendentalist movement, who arranged for the publication of her autobiography. Pen in hand, Winnemucca didn’t hold back.
“Since the war of 1860 there have been one hundred and three (103) of my people murdered, and our reservation taken from us; and yet we, who are called blood-seeking savages, are keeping our promises to the government,” Winnemucca thundered. “Oh, my dear good Christian people, how long are you going to stand by and see us suffer at your hands?”
At first, her book seemed like it might make a difference. The president, Rutherford B. Hayes, and the U.S. government as a whole promised to help with reforms. But their words fell flat — and nothing changed.
Winnemucca spent some of her final years teaching at a Paiute school in Nevada before it was shut down due to the Dawes Act, which mandated that Indigenous children be taught in white-run schools. Though she died in 1891, her powerful testament to the plight of her people lives on.
Maria Tallchief: The Native American Woman Who Transformed Ballet
Maria Tallchief became the first Native American prima ballerina. (Photo: School of American Ballet)
As a girl growing up in early-20th-century Oklahoma, Maria Tallchief and her sister were often encouraged to act out “Indian” dances at country fairs.
“It wasn’t remotely authentic,” Tallchief later wrote of the experience.
“Traditionally, women didn’t dance in Indian tribal ceremonies. But I had toe shoes on under my moccasins, and we both wore fringed buckskin outfits, headbands with feathers, and bells on our legs. We’d enter from opposite wings, greet each other, and start moving to a tom-tom rhythm.”
But Tallchief’s early experiences didn’t dissuade her from pursuing dancing. The daughter of an Osage man and a Scottish-Irish woman, she’d found a passion for the craft and soon leaped into the world of ballet.
After training in Los Angeles, Tallchief moved to New York and snagged a part in Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, a leading touring company, in 1942. There, Tallchief’s talent attracted the ire of some of the other dancers. But it also caught the eye of famed choreographer George Balanchine.
Before long, Tallchief became Balanchine’s muse — and briefly his wife. At Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, he even created a role specifically for Tallchief in his 1949 version of Stravinsky’s The Firebird.
In a rave review of Tallchief’s performance, a New York Times dance critic swooned that Balanchine had “asked her to do everything except spin on her head, and she does it with complete and incomparable brilliance.”
Tallchief also danced as the Swan Queen in Balanchine’s version of Swan Lake and the Sugar Plum Fairy in his version of The Nutcracker. Even after she and Balanchine divorced in 1950, she continued dancing with his company and other companies until the late 1960s. She later went on to work as a dance instructor and artistic director in Chicago.
Maria Tallchief, who died at age 88 in 2013, is remembered today as America’s first major prima ballerina, and the first Native American prima ballerina. But Tallchief always saw herself as a dancer above anything else.
“Above all, I wanted to be appreciated as a prima ballerina who happened to be a Native American, never as someone who was an American Indian ballerina,” she once said.
Nancy Ward: The Cherokee “War Woman” Who Fought For Peace
A statue of Nancy Ward that once stood in Tennessee. (Photo: Pinterest)
Nancy Ward — born Nanyehi or “she who walks among the spirits” — became famous during a battle between the Cherokee and the Creek Nation in 1755. While chewing lead bullets for her husband to make them deadlier, she saw him fall and die on the battlefield. In response, she quickly grabbed his rifle, rallied the troops, and helped lead the Cherokee to victory.
Afterward, the Cherokee bestowed a new title upon her: Ghighau, a “Beloved Woman.” They also made her the head of the Women’s Council of Clan Representatives and gave her a vote on the Cherokee General Council.
But despite being known as a “war woman,” Ward was less interested in war than in peace. She’d grown up as the niece of a Cherokee chief named Attakullakulla, who believed that the Cherokee needed to coexist with British colonists in order to survive. Ward embraced his point of view.
As colonists increasingly pushed into Cherokee territory, Ward advocated for peaceful coexistence. And, for a short time, the Cherokee and the white settlers lived side by side. Ward even married a white man, Bryan Ward, and she learned how to make cheese and butter from a white woman settler.
Ward attempted to keep things peaceful even as the colonists continued to take tribal land. She discouraged the frequent Cherokee raids on white settlements. And when the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Ward took the side of the colonists — even though most Cherokee wanted to take advantage of the situation to drive out the settlers.
When the colonists and the Cherokee tried to take steps toward a truce, they appointed Ward as their negotiator. She pleaded for peace.
“You know that women are always looked upon as nothing,” Ward said, “but we are your mothers; you are our sons. Our cry is all for peace; let it continue. This peace must last forever. Let your women’s sons be ours; let our sons be yours. Let your women hear our words.”
Although her efforts produced an uneasy truce, it didn’t last.
As time marched on, the settlers continued to gobble up Cherokee territory — and Ward’s once-powerful belief in peaceful coexistence began to fade. She was left to beg tribal leaders to not agree to a deal proposed by the U.S. government, which would exchange their tribal lands for different lands.
“We have raised all of you on the land which we now have. Your mothers, your sisters ask and beg of you not to part with any more of our land,” said Ward, who was about 80 years old by then.
Despite her protests — and the protests of other women — the deal went through. Ward died in 1822 as the last Ghigau of the Cherokee.
Sacagawea: The Shoshone Interpreter Who Led The Lewis And Clark Expedition
Sacagawea, as depicted on a mural alongside Lewis and Clark at the Montana House of Representatives. (Photo in the public domain)
When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out in 1804 to explore lands past the Mississippi River, they enlisted a French-Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau to be their interpreter and guide. Charbonneau brought along his 16-year-old wife, a Native American teenager named Sacagawea. In the end, she proved much more vital to the mission.
Before joining up with Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea had had a painful life. She was born to the Shoshone tribe around 1789 but was later kidnapped by a rival tribe, the Hidatsa. They eventually sold her to Charbonneau.
By the time Lewis and Clark appeared on the scene, Sacagawea was heavily pregnant. She gave birth to her son in February 1805, strapped him to her back, and joined up with the exploration party.
There, she proved indispensable. Her mere presence helped discourage attacks by other Native Americans, who saw her and her baby as a sign that Lewis and Clark were on a peaceful mission. Plus, she could also interpret Hidatsa and Shoshone languages, and identify edible plants and roots.
“The men who were complaining of the head ake and cholick yesterday and last night are much better to day,” Clark wrote in 1806. “ gathered a quantity of fenel roots which we find very paliatiable and nurushing food.”
She proved herself in other ways as well. When a boat flipped during a river crossing, Sacagawea not only saved herself and her son from drowning but also managed to gather important documents that had fallen into the water.
“The Indian woman… has been of great service to me as a pilot through this country,” Clark wrote.
But despite her invaluable work, Sacagawea received little more than recognition. After parting ways with Lewis and Clark, Charbonneau received $500 and 320 acres of land. Sacagawea did not get anything.
Wilma Mankiller: The Fearless Cherokee Chief
Chief Wilma Mankiller, pictured in 1993. (Photo: Judy Weintraub/The Washington Post)
In 1987, Wilma Mankiller did what no other Native American woman had done before — she became the Principal Chief of a major tribe.
During her tenure, which lasted until 1995, Mankiller oversaw a budget that grew to $150 million a year, watched Cherokee membership triple, and advocated for better education, healthcare, and housing services. And when she ran for reelection in 1991, she won 83 percent of the vote.
She fought hard to get there. Born to a Cherokee father and a white mother in 1945 in Oklahoma, Mankiller and her family were eventually forced to move to San Francisco as part of a relocation policy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It was, Mankiller later reflected, “my own little Trail of Tears.”
But living in California would change her life. As a teenager, Mankiller had a front-row seat to the social movements of the 1960s. And in 1969, she watched with awe and admiration as Native American activists occupied Alcatraz to raise awareness of the U.S. government’s treatment of Natives.
“When Alcatraz occurred, I became aware of what needed to be done to let the rest of the world know that Indians had rights, too,” Mankiller recalled.
Though she was married to an Ecuadorian businessman from 1963 to 1977, the pair ultimately divorced. Mankiller then returned home to Oklahoma with her two daughters. There, she volunteered with tribal affairs and started to work with the Cherokee Nation as an economic stimulus coordinator. Before long, Mankiller had founded the Community Development Department for the Cherokee Nation to help increase access to water and housing.
Her hard work caught the eye of Ross Swimmer, the tribe’s Principal Chief. He selected her as his running mate in his re-election campaign in 1983, making Mankiller the Deputy Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
When he resigned two years later, Mankiller took his place and later won the election in her own right in 1987. “Prior to my election,” she said, “Cherokee girls would have never thought that they might grow up and become chief.”
Though health problems forced Mankiller to step down in 1995, Mankiller remained heavily involved with the Cherokee Nation. Her legacy of hard work eventually earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.
She died in 2010 at age 64 and was soon memorialized as a trailblazer.
Pocahontas: One Of The Most Famous Native American Women In U.S. History
The only known depiction of Pocahontas that was made during her life. Circa 1616. (Photo in the public domain)
For many, the name “Pocahontas” conjures up lighthearted images of animated Disney characters. But Pocahontas was a real Native American woman whose story differs significantly from the famous Disney movie. Indeed, “Pocahontas” wasn’t even her real name.
Born around 1596, Pocahontas was named Amonute. She also had the more private name of Matoaka, and later picked up the nickname Pocahontas, which means “playful one.” The daughter of Chief Powhatan, Pochahontas likely spent her early life learning tasks assigned to Powhatan women.
But everything changed when Pocahontas was 11 years old. Then, in 1607, a group of English people arrived and started to settle in Jamestown. Pocahontas met one of the colonists that year: a man named John Smith.
In the Disney version of her story, Pocahontas falls in love with Smith. In reality, Pocahontas was just a child when she met him. And Smith claimed that he was captured by Pocahontas’s tribe — and feared for his life.
As Smith told it, the Powhatan tribe was about to execute him. But then, Pocahontas saved his life by throwing herself between him and his would-be executioner. However, many historians suspect that Smith misinterpreted what happened. One theory states that the “execution” was actually a tribal ceremony that formalized Smith’s place among the Powhatan.
But Smith’s encounter with the Powhatan did open up relations between the settlers and Native Americans. For a short while, they lived in peace and the Native Americans helped out the settlers by offering them supplies. But then, the settlers started demanding more and more supplies. Amid rising tensions, Smith returned to England for medical care.
After Smith left, Pocahontas continued to interact with the white settlers — though not always by choice. Around 1613, she was kidnapped by a group of English colonists and held for ransom. Since she was Chief Powhatan’s favorite daughter, Pocahontas tragically became a bargaining chip for the English in the midst of their many conflicts with the Powhatan.
During her captivity, she met John Rolfe, who became her husband and later brought her and their son to England. There, Pocahontas was exhibited as evidence of the settlers’ success in “taming” a “savage.” By that point, Pocahontas had converted to Christianity and taken on the name “Rebecca.”
She sadly died on the trip home — leaving no record of her own thoughts and reflections on her tragic, short, and historic life.
[Kaleena Fraga is a senior staff writer for All That's Interesting since 2021 and co-host of the History Uncovered Podcast, Kaleena Fraga graduated with a dual degree in American History and French Language and Literature from Oberlin College. She previously ran the presidential history blog History First, and has had work published in The Washington Post, Gastro Obscura, and elsewhere. She has published more than 1,200 pieces on topics including history and archaeology. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Editor: Cara Johnson is a writer and editor based in Charleston, South Carolina and an editor at All That's Interesting since 2022, Cara Johnson holds a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Washington & Lee University and an M.A. in English from College of Charleston. She has worked for various publications ranging from wedding magazines to Shakespearean literary journals in her nine-year career, including work with Arbordale Publishing and Gulfstream Communications.]
