Who were "radical" people in Native American history?

by ZenW

I suppose I mean in the way that people like Martin Luther shook things up in Europe.

CommodoreCoCo

Care to be more specific? "Native American history" represents thousands of years of people from Alaska to Chile. Are you asking about religious reformers, and if so, from where/when?

falafel1066

I don't know much about Native American radicalism in particular, but a string of activism emerged in the late 1960s. Not exactly of Martin Luther's era, but Vine Deloria, Jr. in 1969 wrote Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, which most historians of radicalism in the US will argue spurred the "Red Power" movement (of course finding inspiration from the Black Power movement and the Black Panthers). He promoted a pan-Indian ideology that fought for Native American Studies programs in universities, cultural centers, increased outreach to Native American community members, and federal policy changes in regards to former Native American land. For more: Paul Chaat Smith & Robert Allen's Warrior, Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee.

zotsandcrambles

The closest thing I have for you is Louis Reil from Canada. He was a member of the Métis. Metis are a separate culture group composed of predominantly Native-French ancestry. He led a failed revolution and to some he is still a folk hero. Again, he is of mixed race, but he and his people did identify with the mixed value métis culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riel

ahalenia

Almost every famous Native American, but one group you might look at is the Society of American Indians. They were an early intertribal group of Indians advocating for Indigenous rights. They flourished from 1911 to 1923 and included many artists, writers, and activists who had been educated in boarding schools but still wanted to help the rights of Native peoples.

Some of their members included:

  • Laura Cornelius (Oneida)
  • Angel Decora (Hochunk), artist, educator, curator, graphic designer
  • Charles Eastman (Dakota), author and one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America
  • Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai-Apache), ethnographer, photographer, author
  • John Oskison (Cherokee), editor of Collier's magazine, first Native American to earn a PhD from Stanford University
  • Arthur C. Parker (Seneca), anthropologist, author
  • Henry Standing Bear Lakota), chief
  • Zitkala-Ša (Dakota), opera singer, author, editor, educator

and many others. They gave public lectures, issued policy statements, and lobbied Congress.

ahalenia

It's interesting you bring up Martin Luther. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were many Native religious reformers, including Handsome Lake (Tuscarora); Wovoka (Paiute), founder of the Ghost Dance; and Smohalla (Wanapum), founder of the Washat religion in the Plateau region.

These reformers advocated returning to Indigenous lifeways and rejecting alcohol and other destructive Western influences.