{"id":334964,"date":"2026-01-30T12:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/polly-cooper-oneida-woman-who-helped-save-washingtons-army-is-honored-on-1-coin"},"modified":"2026-01-30T12:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T17:21:13","slug":"polly-cooper-oneida-woman-who-helped-save-washingtons-army-is-honored-on-1-coin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/polly-cooper-oneida-woman-who-helped-save-washingtons-army-is-honored-on-1-coin","title":{"rendered":"Polly Cooper, Oneida girl who helped save Washington&#8217;s military, is honored on $1 coin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB \">EDGEWOOD, N.M. &#8212; <\/span>The reverse side of the U.S. Mint\u2019s 2026 Sacagawea $1 coin will feature Polly Cooper, a woman from the Oneida tribe known for helping George Washington\u2019s Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The release of the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/america-250-commemorative-coins-b4c1880f3176f3d4a1d6acdfce9e4171\">coin<\/a> this week coincides with celebrations of the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-america-250th-birthday-iowa-e6fb5df832cdba107ae4e9c62f2577e9\">250th anniversary<\/a> of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It recognizes Cooper&#8217;s role in a 1778 relief expedition from Oneida territory in what is now central New York to the rebel troops&#8217; winter encampment in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where they were facing a food and supply crisis. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cPolly Cooper symbolizes courage that is not just found on the battlefield but in compassion and willingness to help others, which is just a part of Oneida culture and hospitality,\u201d said Ray Halbritter, a representative of the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/new-york-native-american-remains-repatriation-oneida-04c7644861aba35f4860a9a50d6b3db5\">Oneida Indian Nation<\/a> of New York. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Cooper and a delegation of 47 Oneida warriors carried bushels of white corn on the long, cold trek to feed the starving soldiers. According to Oneida oral tradition, Cooper intervened to prevent Washington\u2019s hungry soldiers from eating the white corn raw, which would have made them sick. She taught them how to prepare hulled corn soup. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The coin features Cooper offering a basket of corn to Washington, a design that Halbritter said his community worked on closely with the U.S. Mint. The other side depicts Sacagawea, a young Native American woman who was a crucial guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">It&#8217;s the latest release under the Native American $1 Coin Program, established by a 2007 act of Congress to commemorate individual Native Americans and tribes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Past coins have featured Osage prima ballerina Maria Tallchief; Jim Thorpe of the Sac and Fox Nation who was an Olympic champion and multi-sport professional athlete; and landmark historical events like the signing of the 1778 treaty with the Delaware, the first of over 400 treaties negotiated between the United States and Native nations, although not all were ratified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, said the program highlights those who helped establish a country grounded in freedom and self-determination.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Meanwhile, some coin designs previously authorized in anticipation of the 250th anniversary have been scrapped by President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration, including coins that would have featured suffragettes who pushed to give women the right to vote and civil rights icon Ruby Bridges. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The U.S. Department of the Treasury, which oversees the U.S. Mint, did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Oneida Indian Nation of New York calls itself \u201cAmerica&#8217;s first ally.\u201d It broke with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in allying with the Continental Army \u201cat great sacrifice,\u201d Halbritter said. The alliance made the Oneida a target for retaliation by the British and other Haudenosaunee nations. By the end of the Revolution, as much as a third of the tribe\u2019s population had perished.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIn the long run, the Oneida don&#8217;t fare any better than tribes that sided with the British,\u201d said Dartmouth College professor Colin Calloway, an expert on Indigenous history during the revolutionary era. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Calloway said a desire to separate Native people from their land was one force that \u201ccatapulted\u201d Americans into revolution, and that millions of acres (hectares) of Oneida territory were seized by the state of New York and private land speculators in the decades following the war. This eventually led to the displacement of many Oneida to reservations in Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Like popular historical narratives around Sacagawea and the first encounters between Wampanoag people and the pilgrims, Calloway said Cooper&#8217;s story could be co-opted to signify a \u201cbenign, reciprocal relationship\u201d that never truly existed between American settlers and Indigenous people. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Still, the coin commemorates what Oneidas consider their pivotal role in the nation\u2019s struggle for independence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">\u201cThe whole country reaps the benefit of Polly Cooper&#8217;s conduct because we won the conflict and the United States was born,&#8221; Halbritter said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/polly-cooper-oneida-woman-helped-save-washingtons-army-129709204\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EDGEWOOD, N.M. &#8212; The reverse side of the U.S. Mint\u2019s 2026 Sacagawea $1 coin will feature Polly Cooper, a woman from the Oneida tribe known [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":334967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[502,13137,1674,13139,7756,13138,9365,4604,7149,13140,1204],"class_list":["post-334964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-america","tag-colin-calloway","tag-congress","tag-dartmouth-faculty","tag-donald-trumps-administration","tag-maria-tallchief","tag-markwayne-mullin","tag-new-mexico","tag-professor","tag-u-s-division-of-the-treasury","tag-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334964"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334966,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334964\/revisions\/334966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}