Introduction
Angel De Cora (c. 1869-1919), whose given name was Hinook-Mahiwi-Kalinaka, was a Ho-Chunk artist, designer, and educator who played a pivotal role in bringing Indigenous design traditions into American arts and crafts. Born around 1869 on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska, she descended from a prominent Ho-Chunk lineage that included the chiefs White War Eagle and Little Decora. In 1883, she and other children on her reservation were taken—without her family’s knowledge or consent—to the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institution in Virginia. The school trained formerly enslaved Black students and later, Native American students, in industrial and teacher education. The school claimed to promote economic uplift, but its larger mission was to remake students’ identities, values, and behavior according to white middle-class cultural standards. De Cora and her classmates were educated in a system that sought to suppress Indigenous cultural practices and assimilate students into Euro-American norms.
