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{{Short description|Omaha Indigenous physician and reformer (1865–1915)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2017}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Susan La Flesche Picotte
| image              = Doctor.susan.la.flesche.picotte.jpg
| alt                =
| caption            = Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte
| birth_name         =
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1865|06|17}}
| birth_place        = [[Omaha Reservation]], United States
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1915|09|18|1865|06|17}}
| death_place        = [[Walthill, Nebraska]], United States
| nationality        = [[Omaha people|Omaha]], [[Ponca]], [[Iowa people|Iowa]], French, and Anglo-American descent
| other_names        =
| education          =
| alma_mater         = [[Hampton Institute]]<br />[[Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania]]
| occupation         = [[Physician]]
| known_for          = First Indigenous woman to become a [[physician]] in the [[United States]]
| parents            = [[Joseph La Flesche]] and Mary Gale
| relatives          = [[Susette La Flesche]] (sister) [[Francis La Flesche]] (half-brother)
}}
'''Susan La Flesche Picotte''' (June 17, 1865 – September 18, 1915)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nebraskastudies.org/1875-1899/susan-la-flesche-picotte-first-na-female-physician/ |title=Susan La Flesche Picotte First Indigenous Female Physician |website=Nebraska Studies |access-date=28 May 2019 |df=mdy-all}}</ref> was a [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] medical doctor and reformer and member of the [[Omaha Tribe|Omaha tribe]]. She is widely acknowledged as one of the first [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous people]], and the first Indigenous woman, to earn a medical degree.{{sfn|Speroff|2003|p=109}} She campaigned for [[public health]] and for the formal, [[Dawes Act|legal allotment of land]] to members of the Omaha tribe.
Picotte was an active [[Reform movement|social reformer]] as well as a physician. She worked to discourage the consumption of alcohol on the reservation where she worked as the physician, as part of the [[temperance movement]]. Picotte also campaigned for the prevention and treatment of [[tuberculosis]], which then had no cure, as part of a public health campaign. She also worked to help other Omaha navigate the bureaucracy of the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs|Office of Indian Affairs]] and receive the money owed to them for the sale of their land.
==Early life==
Susan La Flesche was born in June 1865 on the [[Omaha Reservation]] in eastern [[Nebraska]]. Her parents were culturally [[Omaha people|Omaha]] with European and Indigenous ancestry and had lived for periods of time beyond the borders of the reservation. They married in either 1845 or 1846.<ref name=Agonito-2016 />
La Fesche's father, [[Joseph La Flesche]] (also called Iron Eye), was of [[Ponca]] and some [[French Canadians|French Canadian]] ancestry. He was educated in [[St. Louis, Missouri]], but returned to the reservation as a young man. He identified culturally as Omaha. In 1853, he was adopted by Chief [[Big Elk]], who chose him as his successor, and La Flesche became the principal leader of the Omaha tribe around 1855.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=13}} Iron Eye encouraged a certain amount of [[Cultural assimilation|assimilation]], particularly through the policy of land allotment, which caused some friction among the Omaha.{{sfn|Swetland|1994|p=203}}
La Fesche's mother, Mary Gale, was the daughter of Dr. John Gale, a white [[Medical Corps (United States Army)|United States Army surgeon]] stationed at [[Fort Atkinson (Nebraska)|Fort Atkinson]], and Nicomi, a woman of Omaha, [[Otoe]], and [[Iowa people|Iowa]] heritage.<ref name=Agonito-2016>{{cite book|author-last1=Agonito |author-first1=Joseph |title=Brave Hearts: Indian Women of the Plains |date=2016 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=9781493019069 |page=159 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QZ7RDAAAQBAJ |access-date=17 July 2017 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-last1=Johansen |author-first1=Bruce Elliott |title=Native Americans Today: A Biographical Dictionary |date=2010 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=9780313355547 |page=155 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9FwyiW4rAD0C |access-date=17 July 2017 |language=en}}</ref> Gale was also the stepdaughter of prominent [[Nebraska]] [[North American fur trade|fur trader]] and statesman [[Peter A. Sarpy]].<ref>{{cite thesis |author-first=Erin |author-last=Pedigo |title=The Gifted Pen: the Journalism Career of Susette "Bright Eyes" La Flesche Tibbles |type=Master's |publisher=University of Nebraska Lincoln |date=April 2011 |access-date=23 October 2018 |last= |first= |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/journalismdiss/13/}}</ref> Like her husband, Mary Gale identified as Omaha. Although she understood [[French language|French]] and English, she reportedly refused to speak any language other than [[Omaha–Ponca language|Omaha]].{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=13}}
La Fesche was the youngest of four girls, including her sisters [[Susette La Flesche Tibbles|Susette]] (1854–1903), [[Rosalie La Flesche Farley|Rosalie]] (1861–1900), and [[Marguerite La Flesche Diddock|Marguerite]] (1862–1945).{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=21}} Her older half-brother [[Francis La Flesche]], born in 1857 to her father's second wife, later became renowned as an [[Ethnology|ethnologist]], [[Anthropology|anthropologist]] and [[Musicology|musicologist]] (or [[Ethnomusicology|ethnomusicologist]]), who specialized in the study of the Omaha and [[Osage Nation|Osage]] cultures.  As she grew, La Flesche learned the traditions of her heritage, but her parents felt certain rituals would be detrimental in the white world. They did not give La Flesche an Omaha name and prevented her from receiving [[Face tattoo|traditional tattoos]] across her forehead.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=25}} She spoke Omaha with her parents (especially her mother), but her father and oldest sister Susette encouraged her to speak English with her sisters, so that she would be fluent in both languages.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=31}}
[[File:Missouri River near Omaha Indian Agency. Mrs. W.H. Jackson in foreground. - NARA - 516607.jpg|thumbnail|The Missouri River near the Omaha Indian Reservation]]
As a child, LaFlesche witnessed a sick Indian woman die after a white doctor refused to treat her. She later credited this tragedy as her inspiration to train as a physician, so she could provide care for the people with whom she lived on the Omaha Reservation. <ref name="changingface">{{cite web|title=Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte |url=https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_253.html |website=Changing the Face of Medicine |publisher=U.S. National Library of Medicine |access-date=21 February 2018}}</ref>
==Education==
===Early education===
As a child, La Flesche was educated at the mission school on the Omaha reservation. It was run first by [[Presbyterians]] and then by [[Quakers]], after the enactment of President [[Ulysses S. Grant|Ulysses S. Grant's]] [[Board of Indian Commissioners|Peace Policy]] in 1869.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=31}} The reservation school was a [[American Indian boarding schools|boarding school]] where Native children were taught the practices of European Americans to assimilate them into white society.{{sfn|Hoxie|1984|p=54}}
After several years at the mission school, La Flesche left the reservation for [[Elizabeth, New Jersey|Elizabeth]], [[New Jersey]], where she studied at the Elizabeth Institute for two and a half years.<ref>Tony (1999), 40</ref> She returned to the reservation in 1882 and taught at the agency school. She left again to study at the [[Hampton Institute]] in [[Hampton, Virginia|Hampton]], [[Virginia]], from 1884 to 1886.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=47}} It had been established as an [[historically black college]] after the [[American Civil War]], but also educated Native American students.{{sfn|Mathes|1982|p=503}}
La Flesche attended Hampton with her sister Marguerite, her stepbrother Cary, and ten other Omaha children. The girls learned [[Housewife|housewifery]] skills and the boys learned [[vocational skills]] as part of the practical skills promoted at the school.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=50}} While La Flesche was a student at the Hampton Institute, she became romantically involved with a young [[Sioux]] man named Thomas Ikinicapi.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=78}} She referred to him affectionately as "T.I.", but broke off her relationship with him before graduating from Hampton. La Flesche graduated from Hampton on May 20, 1886, as the [[salutatorian]] of her class.<ref name=Mathes1993 /> She was also awarded the Demorest prize, which is given to the graduating senior who receives the highest examination scores during the junior year.<ref name=Mathes1993 />
La Flesche decided in 1886 to apply to [[medical school]].{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=57}}
===Medical school===
[[File:First Female Medical College of Pennsylvania Building.JPG|thumbnail|right|The first building that housed the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, c. 1850]]
Though women were often [[healers]] in Omaha Indian society, it was uncommon for women in the United States to go to medical school, and in the late 19th century, only a few medical schools accepted women.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=57}} La Flesche applied to medical school in 1886{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=57}} and was accepted to the [[Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania]] (WMCP), in [[Philadelphia]], which had been established in 1850 as one of the few medical schools on the east coast for the education of women.<ref>Morantz-Sanchez (1985), 76</ref>
La Flesche asked for financial assistance from family friend [[Alice Fletcher]], an ethnographer from [[Massachusetts]] who had a broad network of contacts within women's reform organizations.<ref>Tong (1999), 61</ref> La Flesche had previously helped nurse Fletcher back to health following a flareup of inflammatory [[rheumatism]].<ref name=Mathes1993 /> Fletcher encouraged La Flesche to appeal to the Connecticut Indian Association, a local auxiliary of the [[Women's National Indian Association]] (WNIA).<ref>Tong (1999) 61</ref> The WNIA sought to "civilize" Native women by encouraging [[Victorian culture|Victorian]] values of domesticity, and sponsored field [[matrons]] whose task was to teach Native American women "cleanliness" and "godliness."<ref>Mathes (1990), 8</ref>
La Flesche, in writing to the Connecticut Indian Association, had described her desire to enter the homes of her people as a physician and teach them hygiene as well as curing their ills, a mission in line with the Victorian virtues of domesticity that the Association wanted to encourage.{{sfn|Mathes|1990|p=9}} The Association sponsored La Flesche's medical school tuition, and also paid for her housing, books and other supplies. She is considered the first person to receive [[Scholarship|aid for professional education]] in the United States.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=68}}<ref name="changingface" /> The Association requested that she remain single during her time at medical school and for several years after her graduation in order to focus on her practice.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=78}}
[[File:Susan La Flesche Picotte 253 12.jpg|left|thumb|Early photo of Susan La Flesche Picotte ]]
At the WMCP, La Flesche studied [[chemistry]], [[anatomy]], [[physiology]], [[histology]], [[pharmaceutical science]], [[obstetrics]], and general medicine, and, like her peers, did clinical work at facilities in Philadelphia alongside students from other colleges, both male and female.{{sfn|Morantz-Sanchez|1985|p=75}} While attending medical school, La Flesche began to dress like her white classmates and wore her hair in a bun as they did.<ref name=Mathes1993 />
After La Flesche's second year in medical school, she returned home to help her family, many of whom had fallen ill due to a [[measles]] outbreak. During the rest of her schooling, she would write letters back home giving medical advice.<ref name=Mathes1993 />
On March 14, 1889, La Flesche graduated from medical as [[valedictorian]] of her class after three years of study.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Vaughn |first1=Carson |title=The Incredible Legacy of Susan La Flesche, the First Native American to Earn a Medical Degree |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/incredible-legacy-susan-la-flesche-first-native-american-earn-medical-degree-180962332/ |access-date=March 3, 2017 |work=[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]] |date=March 1, 2017}}</ref>{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=84}}
In June 1889, La Flesche applied for the position of government physician at the Omaha Agency Indian School; she was offered the position less than two months later.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=86}} After her graduation, she went on a speaking tour at the request of the Connecticut Indian Association, assuring white audiences that Native Americans could benefit from white civilization.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=85}} She maintained her ties with the Association after medical school. They appointed her as a medical [[missionary]] to the Omaha after graduation, and the Association funded purchase of [[Medical device|medical instruments]] and books for her during her early years of practicing medicine in Nebraska.{{sfn|Mathes|1990|p=9}}
==Medical practice==
[[File:A 19th century stethoscope witha bell-shaped end Wellcome L0035431.jpg|thumbnail|A 19th-century stethoscope]]
La Flesche returned to the Omaha reservation in 1889 to work as the physician at the government boarding school on the reservation, run by the [[Office of Indian Affairs]]. There, she was responsible for teaching the students about hygiene and keeping them healthy.{{sfn|Diffendal|1994|p=43}}
Though she was not obligated to care for the broader community, the school was closer to many people than the official reservation agency, and La Flesche cared for many members of the community as well as for the children of the school.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=91}} La Flesche often had 20-hour workdays and was responsible for the care of over 1,200 people.<ref name="klein2018">{{cite web|author-last1=Klein |author-first1=Christopher |title=Remembering the First Native American Woman Doctor |url=http://www.history.com/news/remembering-the-first-native-american-woman-doctor |website=History |publisher=A+E Networks |access-date=21 February 2018}}</ref>
From her office in a corner of the schoolyard, with the supplies provided by the Connecticut Indian Association, she helped people with their health but also with more mundane tasks, such as writing letters and [[translating]] official documents.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=94}}
La Flesche was widely trusted in the community, making house calls and caring for patients sick with [[tuberculosis]], [[influenza]], [[cholera]], [[dysentery]], and [[trachoma]].{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=94}}
Her first office, which measured 12 by 16 feet, doubled as a community meeting place.<ref name="nativedaughters">{{cite web |title=Susan La Flesche's legacy lives on. |url=http://cojmc.unl.edu/nativedaughters/healers/susan-la-flesches-legacy-lives-on |website=Native Daughters |publisher=University of Nebraska Lincoln |access-date=21 February 2018 |archive-date=July 21, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200721153826/http://cojmc.unl.edu/nativedaughters/healers/susan-la-flesches-legacy-lives-on |url-status=dead }}</ref>
For several years, she traveled the reservation caring for patients, on a government salary of $500.00 per year, in addition to the $250 from the Women's National Indian Association for her work as a medical missionary.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=94}}
In December 1892, LaFlesche became very sick, and was bedridden for several weeks. In 1893, she took time off to care for her ailing mother and also to restore her own health.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=100}} She resigned later that year to take care of her dying mother.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=100}}
In 1894, La Flesche met and became [[engaged]] to Henry Picotte, a Sioux Indian from the Yankton agency. He had been married before and [[divorced]] his wife.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=101}} Many of La Flesche's friends and family were reportedly surprised at the romance, but the two were married in June 1894.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=102}}
Picotte and her husband had two sons: Caryl, born in 1895 or 1896, and Pierre, born in early 1898.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=103}} Picotte continued to practice medicine after the birth of her children, depending on the support of her husband to make that possible. Picotte's practice treated both Omaha and white patients in the town of [[Bancroft, Nebraska|Bancroft]] and surrounding communities.{{sfn|Diffendal|1994|p=43}} If necessary, Picotte would even take her children on house calls with her sometimes.<ref name=Pripas2015>{{cite journal|author-last1=Pripas-Kapit |author-first1=Sarah |title="We Have Lived on Broken Promises": Charles A. Eastman, Susan La Flesche Picotte, and the Politics of American Indian Assimilation during the Progressive Era |journal=Great Plains Quarterly |date=Winter 2015 |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=51–78 |doi=10.1353/gpq.2015.0009 |s2cid=154097944}}</ref>
===Public health reforms===
====Temperance====
In addition to caring for the Omaha people's immediate medical problems, Picotte sought to educate her community about [[preventive medicine]] and other public health issues, including [[Temperance movement in the United States|temperance]]. [[Alcoholism]] was a serious problem on the Omaha reservation, and a personal one for Picotte: her husband Henry was an alcoholic.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=107}} White businesspeople used alcohol to take advantage of Omahas while making land deals. Picotte, as reservation physician and a prominent member of the community, was well aware of the damage such practices caused.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=109}} La Flesche supported measures such as coercion and punishment to dissuade individuals from alcohol consumption within the Omaha community. Under her father's rule, a secret police system was instilled which supported corporal punishment to discipline those who consumed alcohol.<ref name=Pripas2015 />
Picotte campaigned against alcohol consumption, giving lectures about the virtues of temperance, and embracing coercive efforts as well, such as [[prohibition]].{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=111}} In the early 1890s, she campaigned for a prohibition law in [[Thurston County, Nebraska|Thurston County]], which did not pass, in part because some liquor dealers took advantage of [[illiterate]] Omahas by handing them [[ballot]] tickets with "Against Prohibition" on them.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=112}} Other sources claim that the Native men were bribed with liquor from white men.<ref name=Pripas2015 /> Later, she [[lobbied]] for the Meilklejohn Bill, which would outlaw the sale of alcohol to any recipient of allotted land whose property was still held in [[Trust law|trust]] by the government. The Meiklejohn Bill became law in January 1897 but proved nearly impossible to enforce.{{sfn|Tong|1997|p=25}}
Picotte continued to fight against alcohol for the rest of her life, and when the [[Native American Church|peyote religion]] arrived on the Omaha reservation in the early 1900s, she gradually accepted it as a means of fighting alcoholism, as many members of the peyote religion were able to reconnect with their spiritual traditions and reject alcoholic ambitions.{{sfn|Tong|1997|p=28}}
====Sanitation, tuberculosis, and other public health reforms====
[[File:TB poster.jpg|thumbnail|upright|A public health poster from the 1920s, part of the campaign against tuberculosis in which Picotte participated]]
Beyond temperance, Picotte worked on public health issues in the wider community, including school hygiene, food sanitation, and efforts to combat the spread of tuberculosis.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=179}} She served on the health board of the town of [[Walthill, Nebraska|Walthill]], and was a founding member of the Thurston County Medical Society in 1907.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=178}}
Picotte was also the chair of the state health committee of the Nebraska Federation of Women's Clubs during the first decade of the 20th century.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=181}} As chair, she spearheaded efforts to educate people about public health issues, particularly in the schools, believing that the key to fighting disease was education.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=182}} From her time in medical school onward, she also campaigned for the building of a [[hospital]] on the reservation. It was finally completed in 1913 and later named in her honor.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=189}} This was the first privately funded hospital on a reservation.<ref name=Pripas2015 />
Her most important crusade was against tuberculosis, which killed hundreds of Omaha, including her husband Henry in 1905.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=183}} In 1907, she wrote to the Indian Office to try to persuade them to help, but they turned her down, blaming a lack of funding.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=183}}  Because there was not yet a cure available, Picotte advocated cleanliness, fresh air, and the eradication of [[houseflies]], which were believed to be major carriers of TB.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=184}}
Picotte's willingness to engage in [[political action]] carried over into areas other than public health. After the death of her husband, she became increasingly active in the campaigns against extending the trust period for the Omaha. She was a delegate to the Secretary of the Interior, protesting changes in the supervision of the Omaha.{{sfn|Mathes|1982|p=522}}
==Political involvement and the issue of allotment==
===Struggles with inheritance===
[[File:Pawnee01.png|thumbnail|A map of the original lands held by the Omaha and other Plains tribes (in green), and their reservations (in orange). The Omaha reservation borders the Winnebago reservation in eastern Nebraska]]
The issue of land allotment came up again when Picotte's husband Henry died in 1905. He left about 185 acres of land in South Dakota to her and their two sons, Pierre and Caryl, but complications had arisen in claiming and selling it.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=147}} At the time of Henry's death, the land was still held in trust by the government, and in order to receive the monies from its sale, his heirs had to prove [[competence (law)|competency]].{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=147}} Minors, such as Picotte's sons, had to have a [[legal guardian]] who could prove competency on their behalf.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=147}}
The process of gaining the monies owed to them was long and arduous, and Picotte had to send letter after letter to the Indian Office to get them to recognize her as a competent individual in order to receive her portion of the inheritance, which R. J. Taylor, the agent on the Yankton reservation, finally granted to her in 1907, nearly two years after her husband's death.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=150}} However, gaining her children's inheritance proved to be a harder struggle. Another relative, Peter Picotte, was the legal guardian of her sons' land, because it was in another state, but he refused to consent to the sale of the land.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=150}}
Picotte responded by bombarding Commissioner Leupp, head of the Indian Office, with letters, painting Peter Picotte as a drunk and R. J. Taylor as intransigent and incompetent, while making a case for herself as the best manager of her sons' money.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=151}} This time, her letters received attention, and the Indian Office responded to her within a week of the original letters, informing her that Taylor had been ordered to ignore Peter Picotte's objections.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}
Picotte invested this money in rental properties, and was able to use that income to support herself and her sons.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=152}} This was not the end of her fights with the bureaucracy of the federal government, however. Her children inherited land from some [[Sioux]] relatives of her husband, and she entered into another battle with the [[bureaucracy]], which ended positively in 1908.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=153}}
===Action for the community===
Picotte's struggles with the bureaucracy of allotment continued on behalf of other members of her community. In her position as a doctor, Picotte had gained the trust of her community, and her role as a local [[leader]] had expanded from letter writer/interpreter to defender of Omaha land interests.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=153}} She sought to help other Omaha who wanted to sell their lands and gain control of the monies owed to them, and she also tried to help resolve situations where whites took advantage of Indians who chose to lease land.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=155}}
[[File:Picotte House from SW.JPG|right|thumb|[[Susan La Flesche Picotte House]] in Walthill, Nebraska, where she lived from 1907 until her death in 1915]]
Doing this work, she became increasingly aware and outraged at the land fraud committed by a syndicate of men on and around the Omaha reservation.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=155}} Picotte focused on the syndicate, which was made up of three white and two Omaha men who defrauded minors of their inheritances.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=157}} In a bizarre twist, Picotte, who had spent much of her life proclaiming that the Omaha had the same capacity for "civilization" as any white man, wrote to the Indian Office in 1909 to say that some of her people were too incompetent to protect themselves against the fraudsters and thus needed the continued guardianship of the federal government.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=158}} In 1910, she traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak with officials from the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA), and told them that though most of the Omaha were perfectly competent to manage their own affairs, the Indian Office had stifled the development of business skills and knowledge of the white world among Indians, and thus the incompetence of a minority of Omaha was, in fact, the fault of the federal government.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=160}}
This argument was the product of her campaigns against the consolidation of the Omaha and [[Ho-Chunk|Winnebago]] agencies, which had been suggested in 1904 and revived in 1910.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=160}} Picotte had been part of a movement among the Omaha opposing this consolidation, and used letters and harshly critical newspaper articles to get her point across to the OIA bureaucracy.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=165}} She argued that the unnecessary red tape created by the consolidation was nothing but an extra burden on the Omaha and was further proof that the OIA treated them like children, rather than as citizens ready to participate in a democracy.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=166}} She continued to work on her community's behalf until the end of her life, though much of that seemed to be in vain, as her people lost many of their ancestral lands and became more, not less, dependent on the OIA.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=175}}
==Illness, death, and legacy==
[[File:Susan LaFlesche Picotte Hospital WalthillNE.jpg|thumb|[[Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital]], Walthill, Nebraska, declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1993]]
Picotte suffered for most of her life from chronic illness. In medical school, she had been bothered by trouble breathing, and after a few years working on the reservation, she was forced to take a break to recover her health in 1892, as she suffered from [[chronic pain]] in her neck, head, and ears.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=122}} She recovered but became ill again in 1893, after a fall from her horse left her with significant internal injuries.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=122}} Over time, Picotte's condition caused her to go deaf.<ref name=Mathes1993 />
As Picotte aged, her health declined, and by the time that the new reservation hospital was built in Walthill in 1913, she was too frail to be its sole administrator.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=189}} By early March 1915, she was suffering greatly and died of [[bone cancer]]{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=190}} on September 18, 1915. The next day, services by both the Presbyterian Church as well as the Amethyst Chapter of the [[Order of the Eastern Star]] were performed.<ref name=Mathes1993>{{cite journal |author-last1=Mathes |author-first1=Valerie |title=Susan Laflesche Picotte.MD.: Nineteenth-Century Physician and Reformer |journal=Great Plains Quarterly |date=1993 |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=172–186 |jstor=23531722}}</ref> She is buried in Bancroft Cemetery,<ref name="Mathes1993" /> [[Bancroft, Nebraska]] near her husband, father, mother, sisters and half-brother.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}
Picotte's sons went on to live full lives. Caryl Picotte made a career in the United States Army and served in World War II, eventually settling in [[El Cajon, California]].<ref>C.A.Picotte (2018) p.197</ref> Pierre Picotte lived in Walthill, Nebraska, for most of his life and raised a family of three children.{{sfn|Tong|1999|p=198}}
In her career, Picotte served over 1,300 patients in a 450 square mile area.<ref name="changingface" />
==Tributes==
The [[Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte Memorial Hospital|reservation hospital in Walthill, Nebraska]], now a community center,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/indian/2001/picotte.htm |title=Picotte Memorial Hospital, featured in National American Indian Heritage Month – A National Register of Historic Places Feature |access-date=17 June 2017}}</ref> is named after Picotte and was declared a [[National Historic Landmark]] in 1993. The hospital has also been named as one of the 11 most endangered places of 2018 by the National Trust.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.indianz.com/News/2018/06/26/historic-indian-hospital-lands-on-most-e.asp |title=Trailblazing tribal hospital lands on 'Most Endangered Historic Places' list |author-last=Abourezk |author-first=Kevin |date=26 June 2018 |work=Indianz.Com}}</ref> Work is underway to raise funds for its restoration.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.omaha.com/news/state_and_regional/new-effort-launched-to-save-hospital-founded-by-nebraskan-who/article_58521602-bd96-52f0-ad60-d5dc7056d666.html |title=New effort launched to save hospital founded by Nebraskan who became nation's first Native American physician |author-last=Bureau |author-first=Paul Hammel World-Herald |website=Omaha.com |date=February 25, 2018 |language=en |access-date=2 December 2019}}</ref>
An elementary school in western Omaha Nebraska is named after Picotte.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://picotte.ops.org/SCHOOLINFORMATION/History/tabid/79/Default.aspx |title=Picotte's history in brief |website=picotte.ops.org |access-date=2 December 2019}}</ref>
On June 17, 2017, the 152nd anniversary of her birth, [[Google]] released a [[Google Doodle]] honoring Picotte.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://searchengineland.com/susan-la-flesche-picotte-google-doodle-pays-homage-1st-american-indian-earn-medical-degree-277263 |title=Susan La Flesche Picotte Google doodle pays homage to 1st American Indian to earn her medical degree |date=17 June 2017}}</ref>
In 2018, a bust of Picotte was dedicated at the Martin Luther King Jr. Transportation Center in Sioux City.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/state-and-regional/busts-dedicated-for-five-more-community-leaders-in-downtown-sioux/article_f94a7eb1-0ef8-5da8-9237-9b6480f45e84.html |title=Busts dedicated for five more community leaders in downtown Sioux City &#124; State and regional |publisher=siouxcityjournal.com |date=5 October 2018 |access-date=15 October 2018}}</ref>
In 2019, a statue of La Flesche was dedicated as part of Hampton University's Legacy Park.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.hamptonu.edu/release/Hampton-University-Unveils-Newest-Addition-to-Campus%2C-Legacy-Park |title=Hampton University Unveils Newest Addition to Campus, Legacy Park |date=27 January 2019}}</ref>
On October 11, 2021, Nebraska's first officially recognized Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a bronze sculpture of Picotte by [[Benjamin Victor (sculptor)|Benjamin Victor]] was unveiled by her descendants on Lincoln’s Centennial Mall. [[Judi M. gaiashkibos|Judi gaiashkibos]] (national leader on Native American issues) was instrumental in elevating Picotte's legacy and the creation of the sculpture.<ref>{{cite web |title=Picotte statue unveiled |date=October 11, 2021 |url=https://www.1011now.com/2021/10/11/picotte-statue-unveiled/ |publisher=www.1011now.com |access-date=12 October 2021}}</ref>
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== Citations ==
{{reflist|20em}}
== Bibliography ==
* {{cite book |author-last1=Cogan |author-first1=Frances B. |title=All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America |date=1989 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |location=Athens, GA |isbn=082031062X |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/allamericangirli0000coga }}
* {{cite book |author-last1=DeJong |author-first1=David |title=Promises of the Past: A History of Indian Education in the United States |date=1993 |publisher=North American Press |location=Golden, CO |isbn=1555919057}}
* {{cite journal |author-last1=Diffendal |author-first1=Anne P. |title=The LaFlesche Sisters: Victorian Reformers in the Omaha Tribe |journal=Journal of the West |date=January 1994 |volume=33 |issue=1}}
* {{cite book |author-last1=Hoxie |author-first1=Frederick |title=A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 |url=https://archive.org/details/finalpromisecamp0000hoxi |url-access=registration |date=1984 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln, NE |isbn=0803223234}}
* {{cite journal |author-last1=Mathes |author-first1=Valerie Sherer |title=Susan LaFlesche Picotte-Nebraska's Indian Physician, 1865-1915 |journal=Nebraska History |date=1982 |volume=63 |issue=4 |url=https://history.nebraska.gov/sites/history.nebraska.gov/files/doc/publications/NH1982SLaFPicotte.pdf |access-date=December 2, 2019 |archive-date=December 2, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191202201823/https://history.nebraska.gov/sites/history.nebraska.gov/files/doc/publications/NH1982SLaFPicotte.pdf |url-status=dead }}
* {{cite journal |author-last1=Mathes |author-first1=Valerie Sherer |title=Nineteenth Century Women and Reform: The Women's National Indian Association |journal=American Indian Quarterly |date=1990 |volume=14 |issue=1|pages=1–18 |doi=10.2307/1185003 |jstor=1185003 }}
* {{cite book |author-last1=Morantz-Sanchez |author-first1=Regina Markell |title=Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine |url=https://archive.org/details/sympathyscience00regi |url-access=registration |date=1985 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=0195036271}}
* {{cite book |author-last1=Speroff |author-first1=Leon |title=Carlos Montezuma, M.D. : a Yavapai American Hero : the Life and Times of an American Indian, 1866–1923 |date=2003 |publisher=Arnica Publishing |location=Portland, Oregon |isbn=0972653546}}
* {{cite book |author-last=Starita |author-first=Joe |title=A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America's First Indian Doctor |date=2016 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-250-08534-4}}
* {{cite journal |author-last1=Swetland |author-first1=Mark |title="Make Believe White Men" and the Omaha Land Allotments of 1871–1900 |journal=Great Plains Research |date=August 1994 |volume=4 |issue=2}}
* {{cite journal |author-last1=Tong |author-first1=Benson |title=Allotment, Alcohol and the Omahas |journal=Great Plains Quarterly |date=1997 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=19–33 |jstor=23531946}}
* {{cite book |author-last1=Tong |author-first1=Benson |title=Susan LaFlesche Picotte, M.D.: Omaha Indian Leader and Reformer |url=https://archive.org/details/susanlafleschepi0000tong |url-access=registration |date=1999 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman, OK |isbn=0806131403}}
== Further reading ==
* {{cite book|author-last1=Enss|author-first1=Chris |title=The doctor wore petticoats: women physicians of the old West |date=2006 |publisher=TwoDot |location=Guilford, Conn. |isbn=9780762735662 |edition= 1st}}
* {{cite book |author-last1=Bataille |author-first1=Gretchen M., Laurie Lisa |title=Native American women: a biographical dictionary |date=2005 |publisher=Taylor & Francis e-library |location=New York}}
* {{cite book |author-last1=Starita |author-first1=Joe |title=A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America's First Indian Doctor |date=2016 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York}}
== External links ==
* {{Find a Grave|54038381}}
*{{commonscatinline}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Picotte, Susan La Flesche}}
[[Category:1865 births]]
[[Category:1915 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century American physicians]]
[[Category:20th-century American physicians]]
[[Category:19th-century American women physicians]]
[[Category:20th-century American women physicians]]
[[Category:19th-century Native Americans]]
[[Category:20th-century Native Americans]]
[[Category:Drexel University alumni]]
[[Category:Hampton University alumni]]
[[Category:La Flesche family]]
[[Category:Native American physicians]]
[[Category:Omaha Tribe of Nebraska people]]
[[Category:People from Thurston County, Nebraska]]
[[Category:Physicians from Nebraska]]
[[Category:Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania alumni]]
[[Category:19th-century Native American women]]
[[Category:20th-century Native American women]]
[[Category:Native American people from Nebraska]]