Famous Native Americans You Had No Clue About!

Jim Thorpe was an American athlete who was counted among the most versatile athletes of the modern era. Jim Thorpe won two gold medals at the 1912 Olympics and became the first Native American to give the United States an Olympic gold. He also played American football, professional baseball, and basketball. He was memorialized in the 1951 film Jim Thorpe – All-American.

Nineteenth-century Lakota war lord Crazy Horse, of the Oglala subtribe, is remembered as a legendary hero who fought against white encroachment of Native American territories. He was part of the Black Hills War and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He died fighting at Camp Robinson, in modern-day Nebraska.

Edmonia Lewis was an American sculptor who worked in Rome for most of her career. The first African-American sculptor to gain international prominence, Lewis was also the only Black female artist to have participated and recognized by the American artistic mainstream until the end of the 19th century. Molefi Kete Asante included Lewis in his 100 Greatest African Americans list.

The last Crow war chief, Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow was part of the Whistling Water clan of Native Americans. The legendary indigenous hero was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A published historian, too, he is remembered for his research on the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Chief Joseph, a leader of the Nez Percé tribe of Native Americans, had initially agreed to the U.S. demand of them moving into a reservation in Idaho. However, fearing retaliation after his men killed a few whites, he attempted an escape to Canada, leading his people through an arduous trek.

Pocahontas was a Native American woman born in the Powhatan tribal nation. She was embroiled in the hostility between the English colonial settlers and the natives in Virginia during the 1610s. Later she married an Englishman and was taken to England in 1616 for the world to see the example of the ‘civilised savage’. Her legacy continues in the US.

Best known for designing government buildings, Charles Bulfinch was also the first American-born architect. Educated at Harvard, he was later influenced by Neoclassical art. His designs included the Massachusetts State House and the Maine Capitol. He was also one of the architects of the United States Capitol.

John Abeel III, better known as Cornplanter, was a Dutch-Seneca war chief. He played an important role in the American Revolutionary War and the French and Indian War, serving as a chief warrior. He also played a major role during the post-revolutionary war years, serving as a negotiator between the Seneca and the new Americans.