Indigenous Firsts

Acelebration of achievement, accomplishments, and courage!

NativeAmerican Medal of Honor recipients, Heisman Trophy recipients, U.S.Olympians, a U.S. vice president, Congressional representatives, NASAastronauts, Pulitzer Prize recipients, U.S. poet laureates, Oscarwinners, 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, DebraHaaland, and Will Rogers, along with less familiar notables such asNative Hawaiian language professor and radio host Larry LindseyKimura and Cree/Mohawk forensic pathologist Dr. Kona Williams. Theirstories plus the stories of more than 900 other people, eventsand places are presented in IndigenousFirsts: A History of Native American Achievements and Events,including ...

• SuzanneVan Cooten, Ph.D., Chickasaw Nation, the first Native femalemeteorologist in the country

• CalebCheeshahteaumuck, Wampanoag from Martha's Vineyard, graduate ofHarvard College in 1665

• DebraHaaland, the Pueblo of Laguna, U.S. Congresswoman and Secretary ofthe Interior

• SamCampos, the Native Hawaiian who developed the Hawaiian superheroPineapple Man

• ThomasL. Sloan, Omaha, was the first Native American to argue a casebefore the U.S. Supreme Court

• WilliamR. Pogue, Choctaw, astronaut

• JohnstonMurray, Chickasaw, the first person of Native American descent to beelected governor in the United States, holding the office inOklahoma from 1951 to 1955

• TheCherokee Phoenix publishedits first edition February 21, 1828, making it the first tribalnewspaper in North America and the first to be published in anIndigenous language

• TheNational Native American Honor Society was founded by acclaimedgeneticist Dr. Frank C. Dukepoo , the first Hopi to earn a Ph.D.

• LouisSockalexis, Penobscot, became the first Native American in theNational Baseball League in 1897 as an outfielder with the ClevelandSpiders

• JockSoto, Navajo/Puerto Rican, the youngest-ever man to be the principaldancer with the New York City Ballet

• TheSeminole Tribe of Florida was the first Nation to own and operate anairplane manufacturing company

• Warrior'sCircle of Honor,the National Native American Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, onthe grounds of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the AmericanIndian

• TheIolani Palace, constructed 1879?1882, the home of the Hawaiianroyal family in Honolulu

• LorieneRoy, Anishinaabe, White Earth Nation, professor at the University ofTexas at Austin's School of Information, former president of theAmerican Library Association

• BenNighthorse Campbell, Northern Cheyenne, U.S. representative and U.S.senator from Colorado

• HanayGeiogamah, Kiowa /Delaware, founded the American Indian TheatreEnsemble

• GeraldVizenor, White Earth Nation, writer,