Mankiller, Wilma 1945-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wilma Pearl Mankiller struggled successfully against male dominance, white privilege, and significant health problems to become the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Her accomplishments occurred in a social context of poverty, failed federal government relocation programs, and social protest movements for American Indians. Her ability to secure government funding for her tribe reflected movement toward assimilation and societal integration for women and American Indians. Mankiller’s support for Indian and female empowerment included social movements, politics, and protest. Thus, her legacy may also be viewed through the prism of resistance to oppression and oppositional culture.

Mankiller was born on November 18, 1945, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the sixth of eleven children of Charley Mankiller and Clara Irene Sitton. Her father’s family had endured the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of Cherokees in 1839 from the Tennessee Valley to Oklahoma, where they lived in severe poverty and had to conduct tribal ceremonies in secret. Despite these hardships, her family remained a source of comfort for her and taught her to be proud of her heritage and her family name, Mankiller, which was a Cherokee title given to a person who safeguarded a Cherokee village.

In 1956, her family was relocated to San Francisco, California, as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Indian Relocation Program, which attempted to sever Native Americans’ ties with their land and culture, thus helping the U.S. government avoid responsibility for the institutionalized oppression of American Indians. Despite facing poverty, prejudice, and discrimination, Mankiller found inspiration and support at the American Indian Center in San Francisco. As a young adult, she took a job at a financial company, married, and had two daughters.

Her activism was sparked by the 1969 to 1971 seizure of Alcatraz Island by Native Americans. She and others in her family took part in the protest as a way to draw attention to the plight of Native Americans. Through this experience, Mankiller met and befriended many of the leaders of Native American empowerment movements. Soon afterward, Mankiller was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. Despite the diagnosis, Mankiller directed the Native American Youth Center in Oakland and continued her involvement in social protest movements on behalf of American Indians. She helped the Pit River tribe regain tribal land from the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which tried to assert ownership over their land. Mankiller worked for the tribe for five years, organized a legal defense fund, and researched treaty rights and international law to aid their cause.

More interested in activism than in being a housewife, Mankiller divorced her husband and moved back to Oklahoma with her children in 1977. She used her skills acquired in San Francisco to work for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma as an economic stimulus coordinator. In 1981, Mankiller founded and directed the Cherokee Nation Community Development Department, which received acclaim for rehabilitating the small Cherokee community of Bell, Oklahoma. She accomplished this despite recovering from a serious car accident that killed a friend and receiving treatment for systemic myasthenia gravis, a form of muscular dystrophy.

In 1983, she ran for deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation. She won the election and became the Cherokee Nation’s first female deputy chief despite death threats because of her sex. She was appointed the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1985 after the presiding principal chief was nominated to lead the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1987, she won a tough election and, while actively leading the Cherokee Nation, underwent a kidney transplant in 1990. In 1991, Mankiller was reelected principal chief with 83 percent of the votes cast. In 1995, she chose not to run again and instead accepted a fellowship at Dartmouth College.

During her term as Cherokee chief, tribal revenue increased, $20 million was secured for construction projects, an $8 million Job Corps center was created, and funding was secured for programs aiding women and children and to reform the Cherokee judiciary. She also developed economic and educational empowerment programs in which women and men worked collectively for community improvement under the Cherokee tradition of gadugi, which emphasizes gender equity. In 1996, she was diagnosed with lymphoma and received treatment while continuing to write, edit, and participate in community organizations. In 1998, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Wilma Mankiller nurtured economic development for American Indians and paved new paths to leadership for women of color. She exemplifies greater economic and political assimilation for women and American Indians. Mankiller’s significance also rests in resistance to institutional and cultural racism and sexism through embracing social protest and oppositional culture.

SEE ALSO American Indian Movement; Cherokees; Native Americans; Protest; Resistance; Trail of Tears; Women and Politics

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edmunds, R. David, ed. 2001. The New Warriors: Native American Leaders since 1900. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Mankiller, Wilma. 2000. Mankiller: A Chief and Her People. 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin’s.

Mankiller, Wilma, Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, Barbra Smith, and Gloria Steinem, eds. 1998. The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Steven M. Frenk

Vasilios T. Bournas

Wayne Luther Thompson