Native American Firsts: A History of Native American Achievements and Events

A celebration of achievement, accomplishments, and courage!

Native American Medal of Honor recipients, Heisman Trophy recipients, U.S. Olympians, a U.S. vice president, Congressional representatives, NASA astronauts, Pulitzer Prize recipients, U.S. poet laureates, Oscar winners, and more. The first Native magician, all-Native comedy show, architects, attorneys, bloggers, chefs, cartoonists, psychologists, religious leaders, filmmakers, educators, physicians, code talkers, and inventors. Luminaries like Jim Thorpe, King Kamehameha, Debra Haaland, and Will Rogers, along with less familiar notables such as Native Hawaiian language professor and radio host Larry Lindsey Kimura and Cree/Mohawk forensic pathologist Dr. Kona Williams. Their stories plus the stories of 2000 people, events and places are presented in Indigenous Firsts: A History of Native American Achievements and Events, including …

• Suzanne Van Cooten, Ph.D., Chickasaw Nation, the first Native female meteorologist in the country
• Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, Wampanoag from Martha’s Vineyard, graduate of Harvard College in 1665
• Debra Haaland, the Pueblo of Laguna, U.S. Congresswoman and Secretary of the Interior
• Sam Campos, the Native Hawaiian who developed the Hawaiian superhero Pineapple Man
• Thomas L. Sloan, Omaha, was the first Native American to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court
• William R. Pogue, Choctaw, astronaut
• Johnston Murray, Chickasaw, the first person of Native American descent to be elected governor in the United States, holding the office in Oklahoma from 1951 to 1955
• The Cherokee Phoenix published its first edition February 21, 1828, making it the first tribal newspaper in North America and the first to be published in an Indigenous language
• The National Native American Honor Society was founded by acclaimed geneticist Dr. Frank C. Dukepoo , the first Hopi to earn a Ph.D.
• Louis Sockalexis, Penobscot, became the first Native American in the National Baseball League in 1897 as an outfielder with the Cleveland Spiders
• Jock Soto, Navajo/Puerto Rican, the youngest-ever man to be the principal dancer with the New York City Ballet
• The Seminole Tribe of Florida was the first Nation to own and operate an airplane manufacturing company
• Warrior's Circle of Honor, the National Native American Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, on the grounds of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian
• The Iolani Palace, constructed 1879–1882, the home of the Hawaiian royal family in Honolulu
• Loriene Roy, Anishinaabe, White Earth Nation, professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Information, former president of the American Library Association
• Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Northern Cheyenne, U.S. representative and U.S. senator from Colorado
• Hanay Geiogamah, Kiowa /Delaware, founded the American Indian Theatre Ensemble
• Gerald Vizenor, White Earth Nation, writer, literary critic, and journalist for the Minneapolis Tribune
• Ely S. Parker (Hasanoanda, later Donehogawa), Tonawanda Seneca, lieutenant colonel in the Union Army, serving as General Ulysses S. Grant’s military secretary
• Fritz Scholder, Luiseno, painter inducted into the California Hall of Fame
• The Native American Women Warriors, the first all Native American female color guard
• Lori Arviso Alvord, the first Navajo woman to become a board-certified surgeon
• Kay “Kaibah” C. Bennett, Navajo, teacher, author, and the first woman to run for the presidency of the Navajo Nation
• Sandra Sunrising Osawa, Makah Indian Nation, the first Native American to have a series on commercial television
• The Choctaw people’s 1847 donation to aid the Irish people suffering from the great famine
• Otakuye Conroy-Ben, Oglala Lakota, first to earn an environmental engineering Ph.D. at the University of Arizona
• Diane J. Willis, Kiowa, former President of the Society of Pediatric Psychology and founding editor of the Journal of Pediatric Psychology
• Shelly Niro, Mohawk, winner of Canada’s top photography prize, the Scotiabank Photography Award
• Loren Leman, Alutiiq/Russian-Polish, was the first Alaska Native elected lieutenant governor
• Kim TallBear, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, the first recipient of the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Environment
• Carissa Moore, Native Hawaiian, won the Gold Medal in Surfing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
• Will Rogers, Cherokee, actor, performer, humorist was named the first honorary mayor of Beverly Hills
• Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations by Lois Ellen Frank, Kiowa, was the first Native American cookbook to win the James Beard Award
• Diane Humetewa, Hopi, nominated by President Barack Obama, became the first Native American woman to serve as a federal judge
• Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail, Crow, the first Native American nurse to be inducted into the American Nursing Association Hall of Fame

Indigenous Firsts honors the ongoing and rich history of personal victories and triumphs, and with more than 200 photos and illustrations, this information-rich book also includes a helpful bibliography and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness. This vital collection will appeal to anyone interested in America’s amazing history and its resilient and skilled Indigenous people.

MILITARY FIRSTS

“Native people are keenly aware of what we’ve given to this country. Across what would become the United States, Native people fought rapacious European powers and, when the time came, fought an expanding American government in order to protect themselves and their homelands. In the 19th century, the United States fought more wars against Indian tribes than it did against ‘foreign’ powers….” 

—David Treuer, The New York Times, August 31, 2021

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                                     Medal of Honor: Indian Scouts

1869. Co-Rux-Te-Chod-Ish, Mad Bear (Pawnee), a U.S. Army scout, was the first Native American to receive the Medal of Honor (MOH). Awarded on July 8, 1869, the citation reads: “Ran out from the command in pursuit of a dismounted Indian; was shot down and badly wounded by as bullet from his own command.” His actual name, Co-Tux-A-Kah-Wadde, Traveling Bear, was misinterpreted and the incorrect one cited. Fifteen other Native American Army scouts are identified as MOH recipients (Apache, 10; Black Seminole, 4; and Yavapai, 1).

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1770. Crispus Attucks (c. 1723–1770), Natick/African American/, was identified as the first casualty of the Boston Massacre, the first in the cause of the American Revolution against the British. The Attucks surname has been translated as “deer” in the language of his mother’s people In 1888, the Boston Massacre Monument, also known as the Crispus Attucks Monument, was installed in Boston Common in his honor and that of other massacre victims.

1774. The Stockbridge Militia, composed primarily of Mahican, Wappinger, and Munsee Indians, was the first Native unit to fight against the British during the revolution.

War of 1812

William McIntosh (1775–1825), Creek, was the first Native American to be commissioned brigadier general in the U.S. Army. Andrew Jackson bestowed the commission for McIntosh’s contributions to Jackson’s forces at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and other contributions. He sent warriors to fight in the War of 1812, Creek War of 1812, and the first Seminole War of 1817–1818.

Civil War

A little known but crucial part of the story was that more than 20,000 American Indians fought on both sides of the conflict. Many thought their participation would guarantee their survival, protect their lands, and enhance their autonomy. Instead, for them the post-war period was tragic. A reunited nation turned its vision towards westward expansion, overrunning Indian lands and decimating their populations.

—American Indians and the Civil War

1863. Company K of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters began serving in the Civil War, becoming the largest all-Indian regiment in the Union Army east of the Mississippi River. The Company consisted of 146 men, 139 of them Anishnaabek, indigenous people of the Great Lakes. The Anishnaabek include Odawa/Ottawa, Ojibway/Chippewa, and Potawatomi tribal nations.

1863. Garrett A. Gravaraet (1842–1864), Anishinaabe/German, was the only American Indian officer of Company K of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters. 2nd Lt. Gravaraet, who was fluent in Anishinaabemowin, English, and French, was a teacher at the government school in Harbor Springs, MI, and a talented musician. He recruited men, including his own father, Henry, into Company K, which then officially mustered in 1863. Lt. Gravaraet, who was wounded at the Siege of Petersburg, died at the Armory Hospital in Washington, D.C. on July 1, 1864. He was later buried at Mackinac Island, Michigan, where his father, who died at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse in May 1864, is also commemorated with a gravestone.

1864. Henry Berry Lowry (also Lowrie) (c. 1848 - ?), Lumbee, was the leader of a band that waged guerrilla war in North Carolina during the Civil War. He became a legendary figure among his people, compared to Robin Hood for helping the poor and fighting against oppression by the rich and powerful. During the war, the Lowry band included family members, other Indians, African Americans, and Union soldiers who had escaped from Confederate imprisonment. The band continued to operate until Henry Berry Lowry’s disappearance in 1872 and the death of his brother Stephen the following year.

1864. Stand Watie (Degataga, “he stands”) (1806–1871), Cherokee, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate army, the only American Indian to achieve that rank during the Civil War and was named commander of the Indian Cavalry Brigade a short time later. The war occurred only a few decades after the tribe’s removal to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), rupturing the tribal nation between the Union and the Confederacy, with Watie leading the Confederate Cherokee. He was the last Confederate general to concede to the Union army, surrendering at Doaksville, Choctaw Nation, on June 23, 1865. Before retiring from public life, Watie served as a delegate in negotiations for the Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty in 1866.

1865. Ely S. Parker (Hasanoanda, later Donehogawa) (1828–1895), Tonawanda Seneca, student of law, civil engineer, and tribal leader, was the highest ranking American Indian in the Union Army during the Civil War, a lieutenant colonel, at the time of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, in 1865. He served as General Ulysses S. Grant’s military secretary, drafting the terms of surrender. General Robert E. Lee, noting Parker’s American Indian identity, is said to have commented, “I am glad to see one real American here.” Parker later recounted, “I shook his hand and said, ‘We are all Americans.’” At the end of the war, Parker’s rank became brevet brigadier general. After Grant was elected President of the United States, he appointed Parker to serve as U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1869, the first American Indian to serve in that position.

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First Native American War Nurses, Spanish American War

Catholic nuns Susan Bordeaux (Mother Mary Anthony), Ellen Clark aka Ellen Clifford (Sister Mary Gertrude), Annie B. Pleets (Sister Mary Bridget), and Josephine Two Bears (Sister Mary Joseph) became known as the first Native American war nurses in 1898. They were part of a small religious order founded by Father Francis Craft, a Roman Catholic priest with medical training and military service, who worked in Dakota Territory (present day North and South Dakota), notably at Rosebud, Standing Rock, and Fort Berthold.

By the time the Spanish American War broke out, Father Craft had offered his services and those of his order’s four remaining nuns to the War Department. They initially nursed the sick in military hospital wards at Camp Cuba Libre in Jacksonville, Florida, for six weeks. After transferring to Camp Onward in Savannah, Georgia, they sailed to Camp Columbia in Havana, Cuba, in December 1898. Living in tents and paid $30 per month, the nuns provided nursing care to the sick and wounded. On October 15, 1899, Susan Bordeaux died of tuberculosis-related complications and was buried with military honors in the military cemetery at Camp Egbert in Cuba. Craft wrote: “This is the first time in the history of our Army that a Sister was buried by the Army with the honors of war, and it will be of interest to the Army that the first Sister so buried, was a granddaughter of Chief Spotted Tail, and a grandniece of Chief Red Cloud.” By December 1899, Ellen Clark and Annie Pleets left religious life and returned home. The fourth nun, Josephine Two Bears returned home in 1901.

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World War I

By war’s end, the U.S. War Department estimated that more than 17, 000 Indian men registered. Sixty-five hundred were drafted. The rest volunteered. All in all, as much as 30 percent of the adult Indian male population participated in World War I, double the national average.

—David Treuer, The New York Times, August 31, 2021

1917. Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture (1890–1996), Mohawk, Six Nations Reserve, who became the first Native Canadian registered nurse when she graduated from nursing school at New Rochelle Hospital in New York in 1914, joined the U.S. Medical Corps and served in the Army Nurse Corps during World War I. She also became the first female Status Indian and registered band member to gain the right to vote in a Canadian federal election. The Military Service Act of 1917 had provided wartime nurses with that right.

1917. Cora Elm (1891–1949), a member of the Oneida Nation, served as a nurse in France during World War I. Born in Wisconsin, she attended the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania and graduated in 1913. Elm then trained as a nurse at the Episcopal Hospital in Philadelphia, graduating in 1916, and staying on as supervisor of wards. She sailed for Europe in 1917, reaching France on Christmas Day. Elm and other nurses were split among three hospitals as the base hospital was readied, opening in Nantes in April 1918. “Although I was in a base hospital,” she later said, “I saw a lot of the horrors of war. I nursed many a soldier with a leg cut off, or an arm.” Elm married James E. Sinnard in 1921 and later served as ward supervisor in a number of veterans hospitals, including Wood Veterans Hospital in Milwaukee, WI.

1918. Choctaw Indians from the U.S. Army’s 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Division, stationed in France, became the first Code Talkers. Two Choctaw officers were selected to oversee a communications system that included 18 other tribal members. The team began transmitting messages in their tribal language, wartime contributions deemed a success by Allied leaders. The Army continued to enlist soldiers from other tribes as Code Talkers, including Cheyenne, Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, and Sioux. Judy Allen, an official from the Choctaw Nation, said "You had this crazy situation where the Choctaw language was being used as a formidable weapon of war, yet back home children were being beaten at school for using it.

1918. Lula Owl Gloyne (1891–1985), was the first member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) to become a registered nurse and the only member of the EBCI to serve as an officer in World War I. After graduating from Hampton Institute in Virginia in 1914 and teaching in South Carolina, Owl attended the Chestnut Hill Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia. In 1916, she graduated from Chestnut Hill, where she was awarded the gold medal in obstetrical nursing. As an EBCI officer in WWI serving as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, Owl was a Red Cross nurse at a base hospital at Camp Lewis, Washington. Gloyne’s later work included providing nursing care at EBCI, where she was instrumental in the founding of the first hospital there. She was later named Beloved Woman by her people and, in 2015, was inducted into the North Carolina Nurse’s Hall of Fame.