In the late 1880s, native Susan La Flesche Picotte, her first physician, was not only a physician but also a public health activist, as well as a powerful voice behind the allocation of land to members of her tribe, Omaha. Inasmuch as she did not live past middle age, LaFlesche remains an important figure in public health reforms and her activities for her community.
Susan La Flesche Picotte Biography
On June 17, 1865, Chief Joseph La Flesche, who was popular as Iron Eyes, and his wife, Mary Gale gave birth to their fourth daughter, Susan La Flesche, on the Omaha Indian Reservation in Nebraska. Both Joseph and Mary were of mixed race, they not only identified as part of the Omaha tribe, but were also involved in the treaty with the United States to cede most of its territory.
It was on the reserve that she was born that Susan La Flesche Picotte was raised. She was also educated there when she attended the missionary school run by the Presbyterians and later by the Quakers. Susan then left to study at the Elizabeth Institute in New Jersey, only to return after a few years of teaching. Then she moved to Virginia and studied at the Hampton Institute.
The usual route followed by most female Hampton Institute graduates was either to become teachers or wives and mothers. However, Susan La Flesche Picotte took the one that had never been dedicated to her when she enrolled in medical school in 1886, at a time when few medical schools were open to women. She was accepted into the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) where she was able to graduate, with the financial support of Alice Fletcher, a family friend and ethnographer.
On March 14, 1889, she not only graduated from medical school, she was also the Earth Medalist, graduating at the top of her class.
5 facts you need to know about her
1. Medical practice
Susan La Flesche Picotte’s story as a physician didn’t begin when she became America’s first Indian physician. It started many years ago when she was just an 8 year old who watched an old woman die while waiting for a white agency doctor. On four occasions, Susan witnessed a messenger sending a message to the doctor. Four times he sent back the same message that he would come until the woman died.
What she felt at this young age was that the doctor refused to come because the woman was just an Indian and it would allow her to become a doctor. When she finally became a doctor, she took care of whites and Indians
2. Married life and children
Susan La Flesche married Henry Picotte in 1894. Henry caught Susan’s attention when he came to help on the farm of his sister’s husband who was sick at the time. In the spring of 1894, the two fiancés became engaged before forming an astonishing bond to the surprise of many because Henry was divorced.
Susan and her husband moved to Bancroft, Nebraska where, instead of being a housewife as expected, she continued to practice. The couple had two children before his death. Henry died in 1905. Before his death he suffered from alcoholism, which forced his wife to work hard to get rid of alcoholism on the reservation.
3. Battle for her husband’s inheritance
After the death of Henry Picotte, Susan had to struggle hard to obtain his inheritance for their children. At first she had to struggle to claim and then sell the 185 acres of land he left in South Dakota because a parent who was the children’s guardian was unwilling to consent to the sale.
4. Community involvement
Besides her personal struggles, Susan has also taken on the various struggles of communities, including issues of land interest, helping Omaha residents sell their land and get their money. After all that she went through after her husband passed away, she made the most of it.
5. his death
Although she has spent her life helping people with health challenges, Picotte has also had many health battles since a young age and this has continued with age. She would be deaf much later in life before suffering and dying of bone cancer on September 18, 1915.