24K GOLD PLATED NATIVE AMERICAN DOLLAR - 2009

Starting in 2009, the Sacagawea Dollar became the Native American Dollar, with each year’s coin featuring a different reverse design honoring Native American culture and history. This coin is the first coin in the Native American Dollars series.

The 2009 Native American $1 Coin is based on the theme of agriculture. 

Maize was domesticated in central Mexico and spread from the southwest through North America, along with symbiotic “Three Sisters” agriculture, in which corn, beans, and squash growing in the same mound enhanced the productivity of each plant. Native American skill in agriculture provided the margin of survival for the early European colonists, either through trade or direct sharing of expertise, and agricultural products native to the Americas quickly became staples throughout Europe.

Three Sisters symbiotic agriculture—planting corn, climbing beans, and squash together in the same plot—also originated in central Mexico and probably spread simultaneously with the corn. In this efficient planting method, corn stalks provided support for the bean vines, which added nitrogen to the soil. Squash provided ground cover, which discouraged weeds. Productivity was much higher (by some estimates as much as 30 percent) for the three grown together than each grown separately.

This coin is a special limited edition that is richly plated in pure 24 karat gold. Just a tiny fraction of the 2009 coins have been set aside for this gold-plated edition. Gold-layered coins are not available from the U.S. Mint but only through special offers like this.

The obverse of the coin retains the portrait of Sacagawea, the first identifiable Native American on a circulating U.S. coin.