Photo: White House Television | Wikimedia Commons
Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to head a major Native American nation in the US, has been honored on the third coin released under a US Mint program celebrating the achievements of women in American history. She led the Cherokee Nation from 1985 to 1995 and is credited with boosting tribal enrollment and employment and reforming programs for health, children and housing. Her surname refers to a traditional Cherokee military rank, like a captain or major. "I'm fairly soft spoken and people, sort of, have an image of what a woman named Mankiller would be like, and I don't think that I really fit their image," she said in 1993. On the quarter, she is portrayed in a traditional shawl, with the seven-pointed star of the Cherokee Nation to her left.
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