Typical Tulsa Squirrel "reporting".
RIP.
I never heard of this woman before reading this thread, and I just did a quick search. Ms. Mankiller is half Dutch & Irish. That might explain how she “grew up to become” American Indian. She began to explore the Cherokee side of her ancestry when she was an adult. Eventually, she embraced it as her entire identity.
Sounds like someone else we all know...
Her story makes a nice little history lesson, actually:
Politically, she was on the Left and was hailed as a hero by many on the Left. Interestingly, as per Wikipedia, there was a controversy when she was holding office: Some Cherokee were slaveowners. Once slavery was abolished, the former slaves (Cherokee freedmen) were enrolled into the Cherokee nation. Mankiller passed legislation to have the Freedmen descendants dismissed from the Cherokee Nation based on not having “Indian blood”.
It’s interesting how the Left works.