First Female Leader in Centuries Returns a Tribal Nation to Its Roots

Taking her new seat at the head of the tribal council table, Lisa Goree spied among some office items a desk nameplate that read “Chaos Coordinator.”

“I guess that will go in front of me,” chuckled Ms. Goree, 60, who in April was elected as the first woman to lead the Shinnecock Indian Nation on Eastern Long Island in more than two centuries.

While the United States has never elected a female president, and Mexico did only this month, female Native American chiefs are not rare. The Shinnecocks had female tribal leaders until 1792, when they adopted an all-male governing structure, Ms. Goree said. They had not had a female leader since then.

Now Ms. Goree’s supporters are touting her election as a return to its matriarchal leadership roots and a departure from centuries of male leadership sometimes marked by internal division and antagonism with local, state and federal government officials.

Ms. Goree likened her election to “a changing of the guard” in how the Shinnecocks approach relations on and off the reservation.

“Women are nurturing and maybe more sensitive to people’s issues, so maybe there’s a different way of going about how to handle things and be more responsive,” she said.