The Beautiful Constellation of Indigenous American Saints

Everyone knows St Kateri Tekakwitha, and St Juan Diego, to whom Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, but they are only two of many Native Saints.

From Aleteia

By Theresa Civantos Barber

Most of us have heard of Kateri Tekakwitha and Juan Diego. But North America is blessed with dozens of other Indigenous saints, too.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha's feast day on July 14 gives us the perfect moment to remember the other incredible Indigenous American saints who have walked in the footsteps of Christ.

Most of us have heard of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Juan Diego. But North America is blessed with dozens of other Indigenous saints who once walked this continent.

In a world that tries to divide us by race, culture, and background, honoring Indigenous saints reminds us that we are all one body in Christ. As Catholics, we don’t have to choose between heritage and faith. We can come together as one Church while honoring the distinct cultures within our global community. 

Here are three groups of Native American saints whose stories we honor this feast day.

The Florida martyrs

The Martyrs of La Florida were a group of Native American and Spanish Catholics killed in Florida during the Spanish Empire's colonial expansion into North America. There were 86 of them but they did not all live and die at the same time. Their deaths occurred over a time span from 1549 to 1706.

The martyrs included a number of priests and laypeople. The lead martyr of the cause is the Native American layman Antonio Inija and a Spanish priest, Fr. Luis Cáncer, OP. The group included a number of Dominicans, Jesuits, Franciscans, and many laypeople.

Their cause for canonization was opened in 2015 by Bishop Gregory Parkes of the Diocese of Pensacola–Tallahassee. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has also endorsed the cause. 

You can read more about them here.

The Tlaxcala martyrs

In May of 1990, at Mexico City's shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pope John Paul II beatified three children of Tlaxcala, who had suffered martyrdom. Their names were Cristobalito, Antonio, and Juan.

These child martyrs, all between 12 to 13 years old, were the first souls in the Americas to become saints. All three gave their lives for the Faith between 1527 and 1529, when they refused to recant their commitment to Christ. 

You can read more about them here.

Nicholas Black Elk

Black Elk's extraordinary life reads like an epic tale of faith, culture, and conversion. We can’t help hoping a movie or TV show will be made about him. 

He was a medicine man of the Oglala Lakota people and a second cousin of the war leader Crazy Horse. He fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn and survived the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, then went on to tour and perform in Europe as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

He converted to Catholicism after marrying a Catholic woman, Katie War Bonnet, and took the baptismal name Nicholas. For nearly 50 years, Nicholas Black Elk prepared people for Baptism, led prayer meetings, organized events for Native American Catholics, and worked as a lay missionary to the Lakota,

He also continued to practice Lakota ceremonies, seeing no discrepancy between the two. This practice is consistent with that of other Indigenous peoples, such as the Abenaki, who found great similarities between Catholicism and their traditional devotions, and the Navajo, who made their traditional corn pollen ceremony part of their Catholic devotions.

As one Navajo woman said, unlike other denominations, “The Catholic Church never told any of the Navajo people they should throw away their Navajo tradition.”

You can read more about Nicholas Black Elk here. 

On July 14, as we celebrate and honor St. Kateri Tekakwitha, we can also look to the examples of these other holy men, women, and children. Their lives and witness are like a constellation that lights up Catholic history across the centuries, revealing how Christ’s love is present in every person, place, and culture across the world. 

Pictured: Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk