Marie Sanchez

Marie Elena Brady Sanchez (born Juanita Marie Brady, Cheyenne: Otseohtse’e; April 30, 1939 – August 9, 2019) was an American Cheyenne, Chief Judge of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, a human rights activist for indigenous people and a linguist.

Early life Marie Sanchez was born as Juanita Marie Brady on April 30, 1939, in Lame Deer, Montana. of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana and a teacher at Montana State University and at Chief Dull Knife College.

As a human rights defender she was an active member of the International Indian Treaty Council, NOW and the Elk Horn Scrapers. The reservation only had 2,400 people in 1976.

In 1977 she gained fame as a speaker at the Conference on Indians in the Americas of the United Nations in Geneva. She discussed the preservation of native American culture and languages, sovereignty and the rights of Indigenous women. During the conference she mentioned the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970 which was enacted by the Nixon administration. In a span of six years it resulted in circa 25% involuntary sterilization of Native American women and has been described as a modern genocide. Sanchez argued that it was one of many injustices committed against indigenous people through American history, such as the forced displacement and relocation of native Americans to reservations, which caused health disasters in the nineteenth century. By the late 1970s Sanchez and others' activism enabled some improvement of federal regulations to reduce unwanted sterilization procedures.

Personal life She was married to Charles T. Sanchez Sr. and had eight children. She died at 80 years old on August 9, 2019.