Tillie Paul

Matilda Kinnon "Tillie"' Paul Tamaree (January 18, 1863 – August 20, 1952) was a Tlingit translator, civil rights advocate, educator, and Presbyterian church elder.

After her mother's death, young Tillie was raised by a maternal aunt, Xoon-sel-ut, and her uncle, Chief Snook of the Naanya.aayi, a clan of the Stikeen-quann, near Wrangell, Alaska.

After her decision not to marry, when she was no longer under the care of the Tsimishian, she went to live with a Methodist minister and his wife, missionaries at Port Simpson, British Columbia.

[3] Her family arranged for her return to Wrangell and she was admitted to Amanda McFarland's Presbyterian Home and School for Girls, where she started using the name "Tillie Kinnon.

She married Louis Francis Paul and in 1882 the two became the first Native couple to be commissioned by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions to found a new missionary school.

Located in Klukwan, Alaska, the school served 64 men and women; Tillie and her husband visited homes three times a week, sharing just twelve textbooks among their students.

There, she performed a range of tasks, acting as an interpreter, supervising sewing classes, serving as a nurse in the boy's hospital ward, and eventually becoming matron of the girl's dormitory.

[1] In 1905, Tillie founded the New Covenant Legion, a Christian temperance organization intended to reach Native communities considered especially at risk from alcohol abuse, with George Beck, a student at the Sitka school.

While her sons are generally given credit for transforming the ANB from a service organization to a political one, Tillie's influence in shaping these leaders was recognized by her contemporaries.

"[10] William Paul argued that Jones fulfilled the requirements of citizenship under Dawes, insofar as he owned a house, paid taxes, made charitable contributions, and, generally "lived like a white person."

[16] In 2015, Tillie Paul's great-granddaughter, Debra O'Gara, was named Tribal Court Presiding Judge by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.