Wilma Pearl Mankiller was born on November 18 , 1945 , in the Hastings Indian Hospital in Tahlequah , Oklahoma to Clara Irene ( née Sitton ) and Charley Mankiller . Her father was a full-blooded Cherokee , whose ancestors had been forced to relocate to Indian Territory from Tennessee over the Trail of Tears in the 1830s . Her mother descended from Dutch and Irish immigrants who had first settled in North Carolina in the 1800s . The surname " Mankiller " , '' Asgaya-dihi '' ( Cherokee syllabary : ᎠᏍᎦᏯᏗᎯ ) in the Cherokee language , refers to a traditional Cherokee military rank , similar to a captain or major , or a shaman with the ability to avenge wrongs through spiritual methods . Alternative spellings are Outacity or Ontassetè . Wilma 's given Cherokee name , meaning flower , was '' A-ji-luhsgi '' . When Charley and Irene married in 1937 , they settled on Charley 's father , John Mankiller 's allotment , known as " Mankiller Flats " , near Rocky Mountain in Adair County , Oklahoma , which he had received in 1907 as part of the government policy of forced assimilation for Native American people . Wilma had five older siblings : Louis Donald " Don " , Frieda Marie , Robert Charles , Frances Kay and John David . In 1948 , when she was three , the family moved into a house built by her father , her uncle and her brother , Don , on the allotment of her grandfather John . Her other five siblings , Linda Jean , Richard Colson , Vanessa Lou , James Ray and William Edward were born over the next 12 years . The small house had no electricity or plumbing and they lived in " extreme poverty " . The family hunted and fished , maintaining a vegetable garden to feed themselves . They also grew peanuts and strawberries which they sold . Mankiller went to school through the fifth grade in a three-room schoolhouse , in Rocky Mountain . The family spoke both English and Cherokee at home ; even Mankiller 's mother spoke Cherokee . Her mother canned food and used flour sacks to make clothes for the children , whom she immersed in Cherokee heritage . Though they joined the Baptist church , the children were wary of white congregants and customs , preferring to attend tribal ceremonial gatherings . Family elders taught the children traditional stories
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Wilma Mankiller