Anika is the matriarch of the Iroquois Confederacy in upstate New York. It consists of six independent Native American Nations totaling 125,000 citizens. The Iroquois Confederacy is the oldest living democracy in the world. A legendary chief named Hiawatha is said to be the founder c. 1450.

Anika, as matriarch, holds considerable power. The tribes in the Confederacy are matrilineal, meaning descent and inheritance passes through the female line. They are also matriarchal. Each Tribal matriarch has final say over all decisions. Anika has final say in her Mohawk tribe as well as the Confederacy. She holds a Doctorate from Cornell University’s Graduate School of Management, Ithaca, N.Y.  When she talks the people listen.

The Iroquois have strongly resisted conversion to Catholicism. Anika’s religion is to bow before the Great Spirit and creator, and discern good over evil.

Aponi, whose name means “Butterfly”, is a member of the Navajo Nation, the largest federally recognized tribe in the U.S. with over 400,000 population. It is also the largest reservation geographically with 27,000 square miles of awesome beauty. Its headquarters are in Window Rock, Arizona.

The Navajo have existed since time immemorial. In modern times, with the discovery of oil in the 1920s, they have become one of the wealthiest Native American Nations.

Aponi is a beneficiary of this affluence along with a stable tribal government and a good educational system. With a near perfect academic record, Aponi has been accepted into Harvard University where she will study pre-law. Her dream is to someday represent her people in the U.S. congress.

Gian, his wife and two small daughters were among the Seminoles in Florida who didn’t escape the Government roundup. The U.S. was intent on clearing out all Native Americans in the Southeast states and moving them to a reservation in southwest Oklahoma. About 100,000 were ripped from their habitats at gunpoint and forced on an 800-mile trek called “THE TRAIL OF TEARS.” 15,000 did not survive.  

Gian’s face expresses his extreme anguish that his wife and daughters are dead, buried in makeshift graves along the way.  Each wagon carried about 20 people. They covered about ten miles a day, sleeping on bare ground with the sky as blanket, the ground as pillow. They suffered through mud, rain, and summer heat with little drinking water. Gian’s loved ones died of dysentery. Now alone in a strange miserable reservation Gian is terribly sorry he survived.

Liya’s face reflects hardship and anguish. She and her husband Thor lived on Standing Rock Sioux Reservation straddling the Dakotas. Their village and cattle ranch along the Missouri River were wiped out when the Army Corp of Engineers created Lake Oahe, the fourth largest reservoir in the U.S. Jobless, Thor became an alcoholic and drank himself to death.

Impoverished, Liya moved into subsidized housing with her adult son and went to work at the Prairie Knights Casino at minimum wage. She is capable of much more as a graduate of the reservation’s Sitting Bull College. But jobs were scarce. 

Liya was arrested and jailed during resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline ripping through burial grounds and running beneath Lake Oahe, Standing Rock’s drinking water source.  

As if things couldn’t get worse, her son was murdered, the result of Standing Rock’s high crime rate.

Lomasi, whose name means “Pretty Flower,” was born on the Tonto Apache reservation 95 miles northeast of Phoenix. When she was a small girl, her parents moved to Phoenix where her father found work. Their ancestors are survivors of the U.S. Government’s efforts in the 1880s to exterminate all western indigenous people not living on a reservation.  The final defeat of the Apache came with the devastating defeat of Geronimo Sept. 4 1886. Geronimo was taken to the large catch-all reservation in Southwest Oklahoma and was never allowed to return to his beloved homelands in Arizona.

Lomasi grew up in the Phoenix school system and speaks English without an accent. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona College of Medicine. She has recently returned to her home reservation which is in desperate need of Physicians.

Patora was the beloved Chief of the Yurok Tribe in the northwest corner of California. In the early 1800s the U.S. Government created a reservation for the Yurok going 44 miles inland along the Klamath River, one mile each side.

After California became a state in 1850, it began spending one million a year to exterminate Native Americans not on a reservation. They offered a bounty of five dollars for every Native American head.

In 1851, the Gold Rush began. Europeans flooded in searching for gold along the Klamath. Fifty Yurok villages were destroyed. Through disease and massacre 75% of the Yurok died.

Patora, saddened by the violence, was a peacemaker.  He urged his people to give up their arms. He signed a “Treaty of Peace and Friendship”. The Yurok never broke the treaty, but shortly after it was signed, Patora was murdered.

Pocahontas was a legendary young woman of the Powhatan Tribe in the Tidewater Region near Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the powerful leader of the Powhatan empire. She is remembered as peace-maker between Indigenous people and colonists.

She was born in 1596 and grew to be a gregarious personality frequently visiting with Jamestown colonists. She brought them small game from hunting excursions in the woods.

When tensions rose between the colonists and the Powhatans, Pocahontas was taken hostage by the colonists as leverage for bargaining with her father.

At age 12, after being rescued, Pocahontas saved the life of John Smith, leader of the Jamestown colony.  She threw herself over him as he was about to be clubbed to death for revenge by a Powhatan warrior.

At age 17, Pocahontas married a colonist named John Rolfe. This brought about a period of relative peace.

Quanah Parker was a historical person born c. 1845, died 1911. He is considered the last great Chief of the Commanche Nation, scattered across several Midwest states. His mother was a white woman, his father a Commanche. Though never elected Chief by his people, he was appointed by the U.S. Government as Chief of the Commanche Nation to represent southwest indigenous Americans in the U.S. legislature.

The Comanches were noted for fierce resistance to being driven off their lands. As a brave warrior, Quanah survived the Indian Wars and numerous skirmishes with the U.S. military who were trying to capture or kill Indians not settled on reservations. He was finally captured and taken to Ft. Sill Indian Territory where he led the Comanches successfully for a number of years.  He refused to abide by U.S. marriage laws and had eight wives and 25 children.

Sitting Bull was a fierce warrior. He didn’t like the “White Man” traipsing through, much less settling on, territory occupied by his people. He fought other Indian Tribes vying for the same food supply. He had more enemies than friends. But within the Sioux Nation he was a hero and holy man.

As Chief of the Sioux Nation, Sitting Bull bravely resisted the formidable U.S. Army. He was determined not to sign a treaty that would force his people onto a reservation.

The Sioux were nomadic. They lived in teepees made of Buffalo hide which were easily dissembled and carried to the next location. Sitting Bull ultimately took the remnant of his scattered tribe and fled to Canada to escape the Government roundup. Those who stayed and refused to live on reservations were ordered hanged. There were massive hangings akin to lynchings in the South.