Man killer's election in 1983 will, and should, be remembered as the first in which a woman was elected deputy chief. It was also the first election since 1866 — when the Cherokee Nation, in a treaty with the United States, acknowledged its former slaves as citizens — in which Black Cherokees were not allowed to vote. Two watershed events, one of them an uplifting sign of progress and a return to Cherokee ideals of matrilineal power, and the other, a reversal of century-old tribal policy that left a lingering “shadow” on the nation, as Man killer herself later put it in her autobiography.
As we celebrate the release of this quarter and honor Man killer herself, what can we learn from her initial decision about Cherokee Freedmen, her later change of heart, and her life as a whole?
Man killer was born on Nov. 18, 1945, in the Cherokee Nation capital to a Cherokee father and a white mother. Her early childhood was spent in the County, where her family grew some of their own food but contended with extreme poverty. When the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 pushed Native people to move to urban areas, promising them assistance finding jobs and homes, Man killer’s family was one of the thousands who thought the risk might prove worthwhile. They moved hundreds of miles away, ultimately settling in San Francisco, where their maternal relatives lived.
The move was hard on Man killer and her siblings, who found it difficult to make friends and adjust to school. Man killer found some solace in local pan-Indian community organizations, and as time went by, she absorbed the activist atmosphere of the Bay Area and became active in the American Indian Movement. She also met and married her first husband, Ecuadorian Hector Hugo Olay de Bardi.
Man killer didn’t easily fall into her life’s work. Rather, she followed a meandering path through legal work with California tribes and Native youth in Oakland, as well as community development in various Cherokee Nation positions. Along the way, she suffered a devastating car crash and a lengthy recovery. All these experiences diversified her skill set and eventually brought her into politics.
When Ross Swimmer, the incumbent Cherokee principal chief, asked Man killer to be his running mate in his bid for a third term, Man killer accepted. Despite a vicious onslaught of gendered harassment — she received death threats and had her tires slashed — she and Swimmer triumphed, and she went on to become a national and international icon of female political power and Native American representation.
Behind the scenes, though, the election that brought her to prominence revealed a deeply divided citizenry. Schisms had long been a part of Cherokee society, but during the lead-up to this election, tribal citizens argued about the correct place of mixed-race versus non-mixed-race Cherokees, United Band membership and the general direction of the nation.
In the 1970s, as the Cherokees regained the power to elect their own tribal leaders and amend political documents, including the Cherokee Constitution, they began to ponder the social and economic directions the tribe should take. And this raised the question: If the tribe became wealthy, who would benefit?
You must be logged in to post a comment.