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Iron Thunderhorse is an author and prisoner in Texas. [1]
He has described himself as the CEO and Legal Sovereign of ACQTC, Inc., a self-identifying tribe, and Hereditary Grand Sachem and Powwamanitomp (Shaman) of the Quinnipiac Thunder Clan.
Iron Thunderhorse was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on January 29, 1950, as William L. Coppola. In 1989, he legally changed his name to Iron Thunderhorse. He said Biwabiko Paddaquahas was the translation in the Quinnipiac language.
Thunderhorse's mother was Norma Patricia Brown, a grand niece of Sakaskantawe (Flying Squirrel Woman). In ALGONQUIN EAGLE SONG: An Informal "Honor Roll" of Great Algonquins, Evan T. Pritchard writes, "Iron Thunderhorse is a direct descendant of Elizabeth Sakaskantawe [Mahweeyeuh/Brown] (the last matriarch of the Quinnipiac's Totoket Band) of the people of southwestern Connecticut, who were among the first … to be driven from their land." [2] Thunderhorse's father was an immigrant from Naples, Italy, and his stepfather was an Ojibway from Quebec, Canada.
By age 12, Thunderhorse reports he had been exposed to six languages (English, Italian, Latin, French-Canadian, Anishinabemowin, and Quiripi) by his relatives. Thunderhorse traces his passion for honoring and preserving the language and traditions of his Native American ancestor to his childhood time with Sakaskantawe. She was in her mid-90s to early 100s when she taught Thunderhorse 100 basic words of the Quiripi language, various Quiripi traditions, and the importance of learning and preserving them.
Thunderhorse was a prolific, self-published New Age author. "Thunderhorse's teachings are a mishmash of Native American religion and other New Age favorites, such as Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism, and Ancient Druidism," writes anthropologist Lisa Aldred. [3] Allegations have been made that Thunderhorse is not truly Native American. [4] [5]
Thunderhorse was incarcerated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 1978. In 1977, he was convicted of the charges of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape, aggravated robbery; and in 1991 convicted of a charge of escape. His maximum sentence was set at 99 years. [6]
In June 2014, shortly after being paroled to a halfway house in Houston, TX, Thunderhorse pulled off his electronic monitoring anklet and fled to the New Haven, CT, area. In August 2014, when Thunderhorse attempted to use a 20-year-old ID to withdraw money from the Chase Bank in downtown New Haven, a bank employee did an internet search on him and discovered he was a fugitive from Texas and alerted local police who arrested him. Thunderhorse fought extradition to Texas, but the Supreme Court denied his claims of sovereign immunity and ordered him returned to TX in January 2015. [7] [8] [9] [10]
He was denied parole on October 13, 2022, due to his criminal history and the violent nature of his offense. [1]
Early in his incarceration, Thunderhorse became a certified paralegal. He served as Editor for Thunderbird Free Press (Native American tribes' and prisoners' rights), and as Briefing Editor for the Prison Law Monitor. His first published work in legal forums was Breaking the Chains (Inside/Out Press, Fresno, CA, 1983) about the history and jurisprudence of self-representation in America. He wrote exclusive columns on prison law in Easyriders, Biker Lifestyle, Iron Horse, Guild Notes, and Voice for the Defense.
Thunderhorse was active in the Ruis v. Estelle prison reform litigation as a class Plaintiff. In 1981, the presiding Judge, William Wayne Justice, appointed Vince Nathan as Special Master to monitor compliance with the court's mandates. Nathan was to study official retaliation against "jailhouse lawyers" and Thunderhorse was one of those interviewed by him at the Ellis Unit. Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) officials declined to release Thunderhorse's central file and Nathan had to petition the Court for sanctions against TDCJ. [11]
Thunderhorse has written columns about legislation and prison reform in the Daily Texas (UT-Austin Law School paper) and the Houston Post [12] In 1990, Dallas Morning News reporter Mark McDonald wrote that "the state also knows Mr. Coppola [Thunderhorse] as one of the most formidable legal opponents it has ever encountered, a jailhouse Clarence Darrow, a self-taught prison lawyer of incomparable skill and persistence." [13]
Thunderhorse also cofounded The Thunderbird Alliance, a coalition of Tribes, Medicine Societies, Support Groups, and prison circles to address the many problems faced by Native American religious adherents behind prison walls. He served as Editor-in-Chief for The Thunderbird Free Press, the quarterly forum for the Thunderbird Alliance. Humanity & Society , a journal of humanist sociology, published a special issue about Native American struggles and two Thunderbird Alliance Advocates (one of whom was Thunderhorse), which included an essay on the legacy of the Thunderbird Alliance, from its tribal roots. [14]
In 2000, ECOS (the Environmental Council of Stamford) was losing a lawsuit [15] against the cities of Stamford and Greenwich, Connecticut in an effort to save the Rosa Hartman Park and Laddin's Rock Park from becoming a golf course. ECOS requested assistance from ACQTC, Inc. and Thunderhorse filed a Motion to Intervene as the Legal Sovereign of ACQTC, Inc., and submitted an 86-page multidisciplinary study about the sites. Eventually, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal indicated he would file for a permanent injunction after Thunderhorse pointed out that the original donors of the land did so with the stipulation that the Parks be used for the public (precluding a golf course for the wealthy). [16]
In 2003, Thunderhorse, who is now legally blind, filed a Pro Se litigation under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) about the conditions in Texas prisons, because they reportedly did not adequately accommodate disabled prisoners. This led to an investigation by ADVOCACY, Inc.
In late 2004, Thunderhorse filed suit in Pro Se under the RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) after TDCJ defendants reportedly violated three previous out-of-court settlements. When the U.S. Magistrate Judge ruled against Thunderhorse, [17] he appealed to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. In a four-page PER CURIAM OPINION, the 5th Circuit vacated the District Court's ruling and remanded the case for "further proceedings."
Thunderhorse has published a special series teaching the basics of many Native American traditional crafts. [18] His book, Return of the Thunderbeings (by Iron Thunderhorse and Donn LeVie, Jr., Santa Fe, Bear & Co., 1990, ISBN 0-939680-68-8), has chapters on Shamanic art and is full of symbols and designs used as iconography in tribal arts and crafts. All of Thunderhorse's books, booklets, and scholarly studies contain his line drawings, maps, and charts. Four of his illustrations appear in Voices of Native America [19] and he designed the cover for his only authorized biography, Following the Footprints of a Stone Giant: The Life and Times of Iron Thunderhorse.
Thunderhorse's historical pictographic portraiture of Tecumseh is on display at the Museums at Prophetstown State Park in Lafayette, Indiana. His masks are in the private collections of Barbara Hand Clow, David Wagner, and Yehwehnode. At the Indian Trading Post and Powwow Museum, just south of Indianapolis, Indiana, many Thunderhorse originals were on display for several years. Other works have been on display in Louisville, Kentucky; New York City; Orange, Texas; and elsewhere. A permanent exhibit of Iron's maps and portraits reside at the Quinnipiac Dawnland Museum in Guilford, Connecticut, while a large collection of his work remains at the ACQTC National Office in Milltown, Indiana. At gatherings, his creations have been used as educational tools in CT, IN, NY, and Quebec, Canada. To help raise funds and awareness, he has donated paintings to groups such as the Eastern Puma Research Association in Baltimore, Maryland.
Thunderhorse has written bilingual poetry in numerous Algonquian language dialects and has published many scholarly papers on linguistics in the Dawnlander, the ACQTC Literary Journal (annual).
In 2000, Thunderhorse developed a 100-page Quiripi language guide. In 2006 he published a 295-page revised and expanded edition, A Complete Guide for Learning, Speaking, and Writing The PEA-A Wampano-Quiripi R-Dialect (QTC Press, ACLI Series).
See the list below for other published books, articles, and unpublished manuscripts concerning Native American languages and writing systems.
A more complete bibliography of works written by Thunderhorse (c. 1985–2005) appears on pages 94–103 of Following the Footprints of a Stone Giant: The Life and Times of Iron Thunderhorse (by Ruth Mahweeyeuh Thunderhorse, Infinity Publishing.com, 2007. ISBN 0-7414-3977-8). Included here is an excerpt from that bibliography.
Some of Thunderhorse's published and unpublished works can be found at the Beineke Rare Books (Yale University) Library in New Haven, Connecticut; at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, Connecticut; at the Mashantucket Pequot Research Center in Mashantucket, Connecticut; at the Center for Algonquian Culture in Woodstock, New York; and at the Quinnipiac Dawnland Museum in Guilford, Connecticut.
Following the Footprints of a Stone Giant: The Life and Times of Iron Thunderhorse, Ruth Mahweeyeuh Thunderhorse, 2007, InfinityPublishing.com, West Conshohocken, PA. ISBN 0-7414-3977-8.
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The Algonquian languages are a subfamily of the Indigenous languages of the Americas and most of the languages in the Algic language family are included in the group. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Indigenous Ojibwe language (Chippewa), which is a senior member of the Algonquian language family. The term Algonquin has been suggested to derive from the Maliseet word elakómkwik, "they are our relatives/allies". A number of Algonquian languages are considered extinct languages by the modern linguistic definition.
The Pequot are a Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Connecticut including the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, or the Brothertown Indians of Wisconsin. They historically spoke Pequot, a dialect of the Mohegan-Pequot language, which became extinct by the early 20th century. Some tribal members are undertaking revival efforts.
The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Mississaugas, and Nipissing, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe (Anishinaabeg). Algonquins call themselves Omàmiwinini or the more generalised name of Anicinàpe.
Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to:
Algonquin is either a distinct Algonquian language closely related to the Ojibwe language or a particularly divergent Ojibwe dialect. It is spoken, alongside French and to some extent English, by the Algonquin First Nations of Quebec and Ontario. As of 2006, there were 2,680 Algonquin speakers, less than 10% of whom were monolingual. Algonquin is the language for which the entire Algonquian language subgroup is named; the similarity among the names often causes considerable confusion. Like many Native American languages, it is strongly verb-based, with most meaning being incorporated into verbs instead of using separate words for prepositions, tense, etc.
The Quinnipiac were a historical Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. They lived in present-day New Haven County, Connecticut, along the Quinnipiac River. Their primary village, also called Quinnipiac, was where New Haven, Connecticut is today.
Quiripi was an Algonquian language formerly spoken by the indigenous people of southwestern Connecticut and central Long Island, including the Quinnipiac, Unquachog, Mattabessett, Podunk, Tunxis, and Paugussett. It has been effectively extinct since the end of the 19th century, although Frank T. Siebert, Jr., was able to record a few Unquachog words from an elderly woman in 1932.
The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family that was formerly spoken by several peoples of eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. In its revived form, it is spoken in four communities of Wampanoag people. The language is also known as Natick or Wôpanâak (Wampanoag), and historically as Pokanoket, Indian or Nonantum.
The Golden Hill Paugussett is a state-recognized Native American tribe in Connecticut. Granted reservations in a number of towns in the 17th century, their land base was whittled away until they were forced to reacquire a small amount of territory in the 19th century. Today they retain a state-recognized reservation in the town of Trumbull, and have an additional reservation acquired in 1978 and 1980 in Colchester, Connecticut.
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. They historically were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and in the interior regions along Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.
Munsee is an endangered language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a branch of the Algic language family. Munsee is one of the two Delaware languages. It is very closely related to the Unami Delaware, but the two are sufficiently different that they are considered separate languages. Munsee was spoken aboriginally by Lenape in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, the northern third of New Jersey, and northeastern Pennsylvania.
The Eastern Algonquian languages constitute a subgroup of the Algonquian languages. Prior to European contact, Eastern Algonquian consisted of at least 17 languages, whose speakers collectively occupied the Atlantic coast of North America and adjacent inland areas, from what are now the Maritimes of Canada to North Carolina. The available information about individual languages varies widely. Some are known only from one or two documents containing words and phrases collected by missionaries, explorers or settlers, and some documents contain fragmentary evidence about more than one language or dialect. Many of the Eastern Algonquian languages were greatly affected by colonization and dispossession. Miꞌkmaq and Malecite-Passamaquoddy have appreciable numbers of speakers, but Western Abenaki and Lenape (Delaware) are each reported to have fewer than 10 speakers after 2000.
The Great Trail was a network of footpaths created by Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking indigenous peoples prior to the arrival of European colonists in North America. It connected the areas of New England and eastern Canada, and the mid-Atlantic regions to each other and to the Great Lakes region. Many major highways in the Northeastern United States were later constructed to follow the routes established thousands of years ago by Native Americans moving along these trails.
The Mohegan are an Algonquian Native American tribe historically based in present-day Connecticut. Today the majority of the people are associated with the Mohegan Indian Tribe, a federally recognized tribe living on a reservation in the eastern upper Thames River valley of south-central Connecticut. It is one of two federally recognized tribes in the state, the other being the Mashantucket Pequot, whose reservation is in Ledyard, Connecticut. There are also three state-recognized tribes: the Schaghticoke, Paugusett, and Eastern Pequot.
The Central Algonquian languages are commonly grouped together as a subgroup of the larger Algonquian family, itself a member of the Algic family. Though the grouping is often encountered in the literature, it is an areal grouping, not a genetic grouping. In other words, the languages are grouped together because they were spoken near one another, not because they are more closely related to one another than to other Algonquian languages. Within the Algonquian family, only Eastern Algonquian is a valid genealogical group.
The Algonquian Confederacy of the Quinnipiac Tribal Council (ACQTC) is a cultural heritage group and nonprofit organization of individuals who identify as descendants of the Quinnipiac people. They are based in Milltown, Indiana, but also hold events in Connecticut.
Metoac is an erroneous term used by some to group together the Munsee-speaking Lenape (west), Quiripi-speaking Unquachog (center) and Pequot-speaking Montaukett (east) American Indians on what is now Long Island in New York state. The term was invented by amateur anthropologist and U.S. Congressman Silas Wood in the mistaken belief that the various native settlements on the island each comprised distinct tribes.
Carolina Algonquian was an Algonquian language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup formerly spoken in North Carolina, United States. Carolina Algonquian was formerly spoken by Secotan, Chowanoke and Weapemeoc peoples.
The Wangunk or Wongunk were an Indigenous people from central Connecticut. They had three major settlements in the areas of the present-day towns of Portland, Middletown, and Wethersfield. They also used lands in other parts of what were later organized by English settlers as Middlesex and Hartford counties. Some sources call the Wangunk the Mattabessett, or Mattabesch, but Wangunk is the name used by scholars and by contemporary Wangunk descendants.
