Who are the Native American Indians on our coins, in the US and Mexico

By SJ Otto

There are a number of Native American Indian coins in both Mexico and the US. In Mexico there are several coins with the image of King Cuauhtemotzín, of the Aztecs. People in that country know who he was. He was a hero and he resisted the rulers of Spain.

In the US we had an Indian coin in the early part of the 20th century known as the Buffalo Nickel. The Buffalo on the back had a name and he was named after an actual buffalo in a zoo. The Indian on the front was made from two models and never given a name.

There have been several Indian headed coins in the US, but until the Sacagawea Dollar, none of those Indians were tied to a name.

There was a $10 gold piece (which was just a liberty head coin with an Indian bonnet) .

There was a $5 gold piece.

There was a $2 and a half gold piece.

There was the Buffalo nickel.

There was an Indian head penny, but as with many of these coins they were actual liberty heads with an Indian bonnet on it.

The point to this is that Native American Indians are actual people. They are not a thing. To really honour our Native American Indian heritage, we might do well to find an actual Indian to honour, as we did with Sacagawea. 

She was a real person and played a real part in our history. That is the direction we should be going with our coins.

According to Wikipedia:

“According to Fraser, the animal that appears on the reverse is the American bison Black Diamond. In an interview published in the New York Herald on January 27, 1913, Fraser was quoted as saying that the animal, which he did not name, was a "typical and shaggy specimen" which he found at the Bronx Zoo.[52] Fraser later wrote that the model "was not a plains buffalo, but none other than Black Diamond, the contrariest animal in the Bronx Zoo…”

As to the Indians for the front:

“By 1931, Two Guns White Calf, son of the last Blackfoot tribal chief, was capitalizing off his claim to be the model for the coin. To try to put an end to the claim, Fraser wrote that he had used three Indians for the piece, including "Iron Tail, the best Indian head I can remember. The other one was Two Moons, the other I cannot recall."[49] In 1938, Fraser stated that the three Indians had been "Iron Tail, a Sioux, Big Tree, a Kiowa, and Two Moons, a Cheyenne".[49] Despite the sculptor's efforts, he (and the Mint) continued to receive inquiries about the identity of the Indian model until his 1953 death.[50]

Nevertheless, John Big Tree, a Seneca, claimed to be a model for Fraser's coin, and made many public appearances as the "nickel Indian" until his 1967 death at the age of 90 (though he sometimes alleged he was over 100 years of age). Big Tree was identified as the model for the nickel in wire service reports about his death,[51] and he had appeared in that capacity at the Texas Numismatic Association convention in 1966.[49] After Big Tree's death, the Mint stated that he most likely was not one of the models for the nickel. There have been other claimants: in 1964, Montana Senator Mike Mansfield wrote to Mint Director Eva B. Adams, enquiring if Sam Resurrection, a Choctaw was a model for the nickel. Adams wrote in reply, "According to our records, the portrait is a composite. There have been many claimants for this honor, all of whom are undoubtedly sincere in the belief that theirs is the one that adorns the nickel."