TAHLEQUAH, Okla.-In November, toy company Mattel released a Barbie doll representing the life of Cherokee legend, Wilma Mankiller.
Mattel released the doll as part of their "Inspiring Women" series, commemorating her lifelong advocacy for Native and women's rights. In addition to the doll's release, Barbie is donating $25,000 to The American Indian Resources Center, aimed at supporting initiatives dedicated to empowering Indigenous women and girls and fostering preservation.
Mankiller, who served as the principal chief from 1985 to 1995, revitalized the Cherokee Nation's tribal government. Under her leadership, infant mortality declined, safe access to water grew and the Cherokee Nation's population enrollment doubled from 68,000 to 170,000.
Mankiller was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in 1945, but when she was 11, moved to San Francisco as part of a federal Native American relocation program. Mankiller later told the New York Times that was her own trail of tears.
In California, she eventually became an activist, joining a 19-month-long protest when 89 Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Island for 19 months.
A few years later, Mankiller returned to Oklahoma and worked for the Cherokee Nation as an economic stimulus coordinator, and then was directing the Community Development Department of the Cherokee Nation.
In 1983, she became the first elected woman to serve as deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation and was later elevated to first female principal chief. After leaving office, Mankiller remained involved in activism until her death in 2010.
The Barbie is not the first honor Mankiller received. In 1998, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Even after Mankiller's 2010 death, the honors keep coming in, such as a 2022 U.S. quarter minted with her image and the Cherokee Nation emblem.
This is not the first Native American Barbie that Mattel has created. The first Native Barbie was released in 1981 as part of a Dolls of the World International Series and then-acceptable term honored the Indigenous people who reside in Alaska and the Arctic regions. In 1993, she was joined by First Edition Native American Barbie, which had long black hair, darker skin than the original Barbie, and was dressed in a white "buckskin" top and skirt with white fringe.
More Native Barbies have joined the family, including second, third and fourth editions of the original and a Barbie line titled the "Native Spirit Collection."
Previous Native Barbies have usually been considered as princesses and were simply highlighted for their clothing-perhaps, some say, reducing the Native woman's value to costuming. So the Mankiller Barbie steps out of the previous box, in honoring a woman for her achievements.
Upon the release of the Wilma Mankiller Barbie, the Cherokee Nation hosted a celebration attended by Mankiller's family and friends.
"The addition of the Wilma Mankiller Barbie to the Inspiring Women series is not only a fitting tribute to an incredible woman, but it also serves as an inspiration and a reminder of the limitless potential there is for every Indigenous girl that has the courage to dream big," Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said at the event.
"I am very honored and pleased that in several ways my mother's legacy is still living on," said Felicia Olaya, Wilma Mankiller's eldest daughter, speaking of the doll. "I think that she would be very honored, and I think that her main purpose is that she wanted to leave a legacy that helped people restore faith in themselves. I just have such a warm feeling. I have two granddaughters myself, and the thought of watching them play with their great-grandmother's Barbie just touches my heart."
