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by Charles A. Eastman (Author)
INDIAN HEROES AND GREAT CHIEFTAINS provides biographical sketches of 15 great Native American leaders, mostly Sioux, including portraits of Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Spotted Tail. Eastman traces their historical importance to both white and Native peoples. Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) was born in 1858 of Dakota (Minnesota Sioux) parents on the Santee Reservation near Redwood Falls, Minnesota. After his mother died and his father was captured during the Minnesota Sioux Uprising, his grandparents raised Eastman. His father found him when Charles was 15 years old and he began school. Graduating from Dartmouth in 1887 he continued on and got his MD from Boston University." Charles Alexander Eastman (born Hakadah and later named Ohíye S'a; February 19, 1858 - January 8, 1939) was a Santee Dakota physician educated at Boston University, writer, national lecturer, and reformer. In the early 20th century, he was "one of the most prolific authors and speakers on Sioux ethnohistory and American Indian affairs."[1] Eastman was of Santee Dakota, English and French ancestry. After working as a physician on reservations in South Dakota, he became increasingly active in politics and issues on Native American rights, he worked to improve the lives of youths, and founded thirty-two Native American chapters of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). He also helped found the Boy Scouts of America. He is considered the first Native American author to write American history from the Native American point of view. Eastman was named Hakadah at his birth in Minnesota; his name meant "pitiful last" in Dakota. Eastman was so named because his mother died following his birth. He was the last of five children of Wakantakawin, a mixed-race woman also known as Winona (meaning "First-Born Daughter" in the Dakota language) or Mary Nancy Eastman.[1] She and Eastman's father, a Santee Dakota named Wak-anhdi Ota (Many Lightnings), lived on a Santee Dakota reservation near Redwood Falls, Minnesota.
