Nellie Two Bears Gates

Nellie Two Bears Gates was born in 1854{{Cite web |last=McCoy |first=Roy |title=Fully Beaded Valise With Pictographic Designs by Nellie Two Bear Gates |url=http://www.splendidheritage.com/Notes/WC9206020.pdf |access-date=2019-11-09 |website=Splendid Heritage |format=PDF}} on the traditional land of the Yanktonai Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna Dakota which lay between the Missouri and James River in what is now North and South Dakota. Her Dakota name was Mahpiya Bogawin, meaning "Gathering of Stormclouds Woman". She was the eldest child of Chief Two Bears ({{died in|1878 or 1879}}) and his fourth wife, Honkakagewin.{{Cite web |date=2008-06-29 |title=Two Bears |url=http://amertribes.proboards.com/thread/345/bears |access-date=2019-11-09 |website=American Tribes}}{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable (WP:NOTRS).|date=March 2025}}

At the age of seven, Nellie was taken from her family and placed in a Catholic boarding school at St. Joseph, Missouri where she stayed for eleven years.{{Cite news |date=1899-01-28 |title=Nellie Two Bears: The Relapse of an Indian Princess into Barbarity |url=https://cambridge.dlconsulting.com/?a=d&d=Chronicle18990128-01.2.58&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------- |access-date=2023-12-07 |work=The Cambridge Chronicle |location= |pages= |at=p. 5, col. 4}} At school Nellie excelled academically and became fluent in English and French.{{cite web |author1=Edward R. |first=Johnstone |date=1906-04-01 |title=Back to the Blanket |url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030214/1906-04-01/ed-1/?sp=31 |access-date=2021-01-03 |publisher=Sunday Magazine of the New York Tribune |page=7}} In 1863 when she was nine and still at boarding school, her family's village was attacked and destroyed at the Battle of Whitestone Hill. Her father Chief Two Bears was one of the signers of the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) and settled at Standing Rock Reservation. At 18 Nellie returned to live with her family at Standing Rock after which she exclusively spoke the Dakota language.{{Cite news |last=Eler |first=Alicia |author-link=Alicia Eler |date=2019-06-01 |title=5 of 'Hearts': A sampling of the Native women whose art is the focus of the new exhibit 'Hearts of Our People' |work=The Minneapolis Star Tribune}}

Nellie married Frank Gates ({{born in|1853}}) in 1878. Together, they had seven children: Frank ({{born in|1878}}), Mary Ann ({{born in|1884}}, married J. A. Archambault 1907), Mollie ({{born in|1885}}), Josephine ({{born in|January 24, 1888}}), Catherine ({{born in|1889}}), John ({{born in|1891}}), and Annie ({{born in|unknown}}).{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable (WP:NOTRS).|date=March 2025}}

In 1946, her daughter, Josephine Gates Kelly, became the first woman in the United States to be elected chair of a tribal council.{{Cite web |year=2017 |title=Profile: Josephine Gates Kelly |url=https://www.ndstudies.gov/gr4/american-indians-north-dakota/part-4-reservations-north-dakota/profile-josephine-gates-kelly |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=2024-03-07 |website=North Dakota Studies |publisher=State Historical Society of North Dakota}} Kelly was the tribal chair of Standing Rock Reservation from 1946 to 1951. Kelly may also be the first female delegate to a Republican National Convention.{{Cite news |date=2010-03-28 |title=The first female Native American to head to a major tribe |work=The Bismarck Tribune}} Her great-granddaughter is author Mona Susan Power.

File:Suitcase, 1880-1910 by Nellie Two Bear Gates.jpg

Suitcase (1880–1910) is housed at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It depicts a wedding scene and was a gift for Gates' relative, Ida Claymore, in honor of her marriage.{{Cite web |title=Suitcase, 1880–1910 |url=https://collections.artsmia.org/art/109856/suitcase-nellie-two-bear-gates |access-date=2019-11-09 |website=Minneapolis Institute of Art}}

Pictorial Valise ({{circa|1903}}), is part of the Hirschfield Family Collection{{Cite book |last=Bol |first=Marsha C. |title=The Art & Tradition of Beadwork |date=2018-06-05 |publisher=Gibbs Smith |year= |isbn=978-1-4236-3179-8}} and was displayed as part of the Artists of the Earth and Sky exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.{{Cite web |date=2015 |title=The Plains Indians: Artists of the Earth and Sky |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/plains-indians-artists-of-earth-and-sky/about-the-exhibition |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150313214425/https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/plains-indians-artists-of-earth-and-sky/about-the-exhibition |archive-date=2015-03-13 |access-date= |website=Metropolitan Museum of Art}} It was created as a gift for her daughter Josephine at the time of her graduation from the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, and depicts Chief Two Bears' actions in the Battle of Whitestone Hill in 1863.{{Cite web |title=Beaded Valise |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/643690 |access-date=2019-11-09 |website=Metropolitan Museum of Art}}

Beaded Valise ({{circa|1907}}) is a traveling case showing pictographic designs of mounted warriors. It was a gift for her son-in-law, J. A. Archambault, as a wedding present. It has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution, the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, and the Eiteljorg Museum.

She was also featured in a group exhibit, Hearts of our People: Native Women Artists, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2019.

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Category:1850s births

Category:1935 deaths

Category:Standing Rock Sioux people

Category:Native American beadworkers

Category:American beadworkers

Category:Native American women artists

Category:20th-century American artists

Category:20th-century American women artists

Category:19th-century American artists

Category:19th-century American women artists

Category:Women beadworkers

Category:19th-century Native American women

Category:19th-century Native American artists

Category:20th-century Native American women

Category:20th-century Native American artists