Five Lives That Reveal How Indigenous Voices Entered the Machinery of Power
• Power Through Participation
https://lewisra645-otjrc.blog/2026/03/07/power-through-participation/
• Ira Hayes — The Native American Warrior
https://lewisra645-otjrc.blog/2026/03/07/ira-hayes-the-native-american-warrior/
• Jim Thorpe and the Quiet Power of a Nation
https://lewisra645-otjrc.blog/2026/03/07/jim-thorpe-and-the-quiet-power-of-a-nation/
• Ben Nighthorse Campbell — The Legislator
https://lewisra645-otjrc.blog/2026/03/07/ben-nighthorse-campbell-the-legislator/
• Deb Haaland — Native American Leadership in the Executive Branch
https://lewisra645-otjrc.blog/2026/03/07/deb-haaland-native-american-leadership/
Dear Reader,
Permit me to step briefly out from behind the curtain and speak with you for a moment.
When people think about power in American history, they usually imagine a familiar set of images. Marble buildings in Washington. Presidents standing behind podiums. Senators debating under the great dome of the Capitol. Generals commanding armies. Diplomats negotiating treaties.
Those images are not wrong.
But they are incomplete.
Because the history of power in the United States has never belonged to a single group of people. It has always been shaped by many voices—some loud, some quiet, some standing inside the halls of government, and others approaching those halls from the outside.
Among those voices are the Indigenous nations of North America.
And that is where this series begins.
The five essays gathered here explore a simple but often overlooked truth: Native Americans have influenced the machinery of American power in more ways than most people realize. Sometimes that influence appeared on the battlefield. Sometimes in the arena of culture and sport. Sometimes inside the legislative chambers of Congress. And sometimes, quite literally, inside the executive branch of the federal government itself.
Look closely at the figures in this series and a pattern begins to emerge.
Ira Hayes represents Native service in the military—an Indigenous Marine who helped raise the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, a moment that became one of the most iconic images of the Second World War.
Jim Thorpe shows how Native excellence reached the global stage through sport, becoming one of the greatest athletes in Olympic history and an early symbol of Indigenous achievement in modern America.
Ben Nighthorse Campbell demonstrates Native participation in the legislative branch, serving both in the House of Representatives and later in the United States Senate.
And Deb Haaland illustrates something even more remarkable: the moment when Native leadership entered the executive branch of American government itself. In 2021, Haaland became the first Native American to serve as a United States cabinet secretary when she was sworn in as Secretary of the Interior.
Taken together, these stories reveal something larger than biography.
They reveal participation.
And participation is one of the most powerful forces in political history.
Nations are not static machines. They are living systems. Over time they absorb new voices, new experiences, and new perspectives. Sometimes that process moves slowly—so slowly that people living through it barely notice the change.
Yet when we step back and look across decades, or even centuries, the pattern becomes clear.
Doors that were once closed begin to open.
Voices that once stood outside the room gradually move closer to the table.
Eventually, some of those voices take their seats among the decision-makers themselves.
That is the story this series explores.
Not a story of sudden revolution.
But a story of gradual participation.
Because the true evolution of political power rarely arrives all at once. It unfolds piece by piece, person by person, generation by generation.
And sometimes, Dear Reader, the best way to understand the movement of history is not to study institutions alone.
It is to follow the lives of the people who slowly changed those institutions from within.
These five essays are an invitation to do exactly that.
THOGG: The History of Global Geopolitics the Board Game.