Born Inshtatheamba, Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first Native American to achieve her medical degree in the mid 1500s. At the age of 19 she went to a white American school and started her schooling before graduating with a medical degree in 1889. After earning her degree, she came back to the Omaha reservation and being a lifetime of service towards her tribe in many different ways. In addition to being one of the first Native American doctors, she was also an activist for the Omaha people.
In terms of the Dawes Act, the Omaha tribe had been granted reservation land, but under the Dawes Act, this land was set to be broken up by the government and distributed for individual ownership instead of collective tribe ownership. This threatened the tribes' cultural structures of shared land and pushed for assimilation of Native Americans by isolating them from each other leading to further assimilation and adoption of white American expectations. During their grace period, before land was redistributed in 1909-1910, Dr. Picotte and other Native American leaders traveled to Washington DC to advocate for at least some land to be kept for the tribe.
