The inspiring story of Wilma Mankiller

After growing up in need on Cherokee Nation land, Wilma Mankiller would go on to transform her tribe for the better. Wilma Mankiller was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, in 1945. The sixth of 11 children, young Wilma would one day grow up to become chief. That seemed an unlikely outcome at the time. Not only had no woman ever been elected chief of amajor Native American tribe, but Mankiller grew up in poverty, in a rural home with no electricity, no indoor plumbing, and no telephone.

When Mankiller was 10 or 11 years old, her family left their ancestral home. As part of the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, the Bureau of Indian Affairs hadpromised good jobs to Native Americans who left federally-subsidized lands. So, the Mankiller family headed west for San Francisco, where Wilma's father would work in a warehouse. "I remember as we drove to the train, I felt so sad," Wilma Mankiller told the New York Times in 1993. "I was trying to memorize every tree, and what the school looked like, which flowers were blooming in my grandfather's front yard, all those sorts of things." Over a century earlier, Mankiller's ancestors had walked the Trail of Tears, leaving their ancestral lands to settle in "Indian Territory." Mankiller saw a parallel with her family's relocation.

In California, Mankiller married her first husband, an accountant named Hector Hugo Olaya de Bardi, at the age of 18. The pair had two daughters, and by the time she was 20, it seemed as though Mankiller had settled into the role of a housewife. Before long, however, she became swept up in the unrest of the 1960s. And witnessing social activism would change the course of Mankiller's life.

In November, 1969, a group called Indians of All Tribes landed in San Francisco. The activists occupied Alcatraz Island to bring attention to Native American issues. Wilma Mankiller joined the demonstration and was profoundly inspired by what she witnessed. At the time, it was the first inter tribal protest to bring national attention to Native American rights. "When Alcatraz occurred, "Mankiller said, "I became aware of what needed to be done to let the rest of the world know that Indians had rights, too."

"I had felt there was something wrong with me because I wasn't happy being a traditional housewife," Mankiller told the New York Times. "I started listening to what these people were saying. What Alcatraz did for me was, it enabled me to see people who felt like I did, but could articulate it much better. We can do something about the fact that treaties are no longer recognized, that there needs to be better education and health care.

Inspired by the Alcatraz occupation and by the women's movement, Wilma Mankiller became director of the Native American Youth Center in Oakland. And in the 1970s, she returned home to Oklahoma, where she continued her activism work. When Wilma Mankiller arrived in Bell, Oklahoma, she learned that hundreds of Cherokee families had no running water. As the Cherokee Nation's economic stimulus coordinator and founder of the Community Development Department, Mankiller got to work, leading the construction of a 16-mile-long waterline to serve the community.

Chief Ross Swimmer of the Cherokee Nation asked Mankiller to serve as his Deputy Chief in 1983. Two years later, Mankiller became Principal Chief when Swimmer took a job leading the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Then, in 1987, Mankiller became the first woman to be elected chief of the Cherokee Nation - indeed, of any major Native American tribe. She won reelection in 1991. In that race, Mankiller captured 83% of the vote.

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The inspiring story of Wilma Mankiller (12-18)