24K GOLD PLATED NATIVE AMERICAN DOLLAR - 2011

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 third coin in the Native American Dollars series.

The theme for the 2011 Native American $1 Coin is “Supreme Sachem Ousamequin, Massasoit of the Great Wampanoag Nation Creates Alliance with Settlers at Plymouth Bay (1621).”

Within Native American culture, the ability to make peace was historically as highly prized as leadership in war and often conducted by a separate peace chief, who stepped in when the time for the warriors had passed. For centuries, tribes created alliances with each other that spanned hundreds of miles. One of the first treaties for a mutual alliance with settlers in what became the United States of America occurred between the Puritan settlers at Plymouth and the Massasoit of the Pokanoket Wampanoag in 1621. Historians credit the alliance with the Massasoit with ensuring survival of the Plymouth colony.

From the Declaration of Independence until 1868, the U.S. made some 370 treaties with Indian tribes. Congress suspended formal treaty-making in 1868, but since then, government-to-government relations between the U.S. and sovereign tribes have taken a variety of other legal forms. Current U.S. policy states that federal relations with recognized tribes are conducted on a government-to-government basis.

This coin is a special limited edition that is richly plated in pure 24 karat gold. Just a tiny fraction of the 2011 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.