Edgewood, New Mexico — The reverse of the 2026 Sacagawea dollar coin issued by the U.S. Mint will feature an image of Polly Cooper, an Oneida woman known for aiding George Washington’s Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
release currency This week coincides with the anniversary celebrations 250th anniversary On the occasion of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It acknowledges Cooper’s role in a 1778 relief expedition from Oneida Territory in what is now central New York to the winter camp of rebel forces at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where they were facing a food and supply crisis.
“Polly Cooper symbolizes the courage that is found not only on the battlefield but in compassion and the desire to help others, which is just part of the Oneida culture and hospitality,” said Ray Halbritter, Oneida representative. Oneida Indian Nation New York.
Cooper and a delegation of 47 Oneida warriors carried bushels of sorghum on the long, cold journey to feed the hungry soldiers. According to Oneida oral tradition, Cooper intervened to prevent Washington’s hungry soldiers from eating raw sorghum, which would have made them sick. I taught them how to make hulled corn soup.
The coin shows Cooper presenting a basket of corn to Washington, a design Halbritter said his society worked on closely with the U.S. Mint. The obverse depicts Sacagawea, a young Native American woman who was an important guide to the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
It is the latest in the Native American Dollar coin program, which was created by a 2007 act of Congress to commemorate Native American individuals and tribes.
Previous coins featured Osage prima ballerina Maria Tallchief. Jim Thorpe of Sac and Fox Nation who was an Olympic champion and multi-sport professional athlete; And historic historical events such as the signing of the 1778 Treaty with Delaware, the first of more than 400 treaties negotiated between the United States and indigenous nations, although not all of them were ratified.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullen, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, said the program highlights those who helped create a nation grounded in freedom and self-determination.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has canceled some previously allowed coin designs in anticipation of the 250th anniversary, including coins that would have featured suffragists who pushed for women’s right to vote and civil rights icon Ruby Bridges.
The US Treasury Department, which oversees the US Mint, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Oneida Indian Nation in New York calls itself “America’s First Ally.” It seceded from the Haudenosaurian Confederacy by allying itself with the Continental Army “at great sacrifice,” Halbritter said. The alliance made the Oneida a target of retaliation by the British and other Haudenosaunee nations. By the end of the revolution, up to a third of the tribe’s population had perished.
“In the long run, the Oneida were no better off than the tribes that sided with the British,” said Colin Calloway, a professor at Dartmouth College and an expert on Native history during the Revolutionary era.
Calloway said that the desire to separate Native people from their lands was one of the forces that “pushed” Americans into revolt, and that New York state and private land speculators seized millions of acres (hectares) of Oneida land in the decades after the war. This eventually led to the exodus of many Oneida to reservations in Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada.
Like popular historical accounts about Sacagawea and the first encounters between the Wampanoag people and the Pilgrims, Calloway said Cooper’s story could be chosen to signify a “benign, reciprocal relationship” that didn’t really exist between American settlers and Native people.
However, the coin commemorates what the Oneidas consider their pivotal role in the nation’s struggle for independence.
“The entire country is reaping the benefits of Polly Cooper’s behavior because we won the conflict and the United States was born,” Halbritter said.