Sixth Grade
Worksheets
Wilma P. Mankiller: First Woman Chief of the Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee are an important tribe of Native Americans that live in the area around Oklahoma. Many years ago the person in charge of protecting a Cherokee village was given the name Mankiller. Wilma Mankiller was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in 1943. She lived on the Cherokee reservation. For the first ten years of her life, she had no indoor plumbing or electricity.
The government moved Wilma's family to San Francisco in 1953. They wanted to move Native Americans from their remote villages into larger cities. The move was an eye opening experience for Wilma. She had never seen television, elevators, bicycles, or indoor toilets. She also had never been exposed to prejudice. Wilma saw signs in restaurants that said, "No dogs. No Indians." She was unhappy at school. Wilma was teased and bullied because of her name and her heritage. She felt very isolated in her new community. She ran away from home several times. She began to use her fists to defend herself.
By the time she was seventeen, Wilma was married. She spent the next few years raising her two daughters. In 1969 a group of Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Island, which was a former prison site in the San Francisco Bay area. They wanted to bring attention to the poor treatment of Native Americans. Wilma became interested in this movement.
