Women You May Not Know

As a young girl, Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte (1865-1915) watched an Omaha Reservation neighbor die due to a white doctor’s negligence; she resolved then to become a doctor and treat underserved Native peoples.

An Omaha tribeswoman of Ponca, French, and Anglo-American descent, Picotte excelled in her coed Christian school and at the Hampton Institute, and became the first Native American woman physician after graduating from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1889.

Intimately familiar with her patients’ customs and values, Picotte gained their trust making house calls as a physician for the Office of Indian Affairs and “medical missionary” for the Presbyterian Church. Having learned three languages at the insistence of her father Chief Joseph LaFlesche (Iron Eye), Picotte also worked as a translator, correspondent, and temperance lobbyist for the Omaha tribe.

She married at 29 and had two sons, continuing a private practice. In 1913 she founded the first private hospital on Native land. The site now houses the Walthill Sacred Child Program.

By Jen Hawkins