WASHINGTON — Just as it’s wrong to call Deb Haaland, a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, the first Native American member of a U.S. president’s Cabinet — that distinction actually goes to Charles Curtis, who served as the nation’s 31st vice president under President Herbert Hoover — it’s also inaccurate to say that the new U.S. Treasurer Lynn Malerba is the first Native American signatory of U.S. money.

Yet NPR, the AP, and numerous other respected news outlets have made that mistake, and it’s a misstatement that’s been repeated, far and wide, by at least a few unknowing federal officials.

Some of our Oklahoma-based Native pals have asked us to put the word out to help correct the record, so, for the sake of history, here goes.

First, Curtis. As the Obama White House succinctly noted, the president’s Cabinet includes the vice president and the heads of 15 executive departments.

Curtis was a citizen of the Kaw Nation, and he served as veep during the Great Depression from 1929 to 1933. He lived on his tribe’s reservation for a portion of his youth and spoke his tribe’s language before he ever learned English. He experienced racism and was known by some as “Indian Charlie.” He hired a Native jazz band to play at his vice-presidential inauguration, and he decorated his office with Native American art.

Curtis was a Republican, and policy-wise, he was anti-tribe by today’s standards, supporting allotment and boarding school-based assimilation — not unusual views for Native Americans of his time to hold, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

So, Curtis beat Haaland to the Cabinet by 90 years or so, but she can rightfully claim to be the first female Native American member of a U.S. president’s Cabinet.

As for Malerba, NPR and many other news outlets have been reporting that as the first Native American U.S. Treasurer of the United States, the Mohegan Nation chief will also be the first Native American signatory of U.S. money. That, too, is false.

While Malerba is the first female Native Treasurer, Houston Benge Teehee, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, was actually the first Native to sign U.S. money after he was appointed register of the U.S. Treasury way back in 1914 under President Woodrow Wilson.

According to the Oklahoma Senate, Teehee over 100 years ago accomplished some of what Malerba is being credited with today (see italics below):

Houston Benge Teehee was born on October 14, 1874 in Sequoyah County to Stephen Teehee and Rhoda Benge. He was a Cherokee who was destined to bring honor and recognition to his country. His father was a prominent farmer and Baptist minister who spoke only the Cherokee language. Houston attended the Cherokee common schools and later the Cherokee Male Seminary at Tahlequah. After graduation from the Seminary, he was a student at Fort Worth University.

He returned to Tahlequah and after working as a clerk for a period of ten years, he became Cashier of the Cherokee National Bank of Tahlequah in 1906. During this time, he studied law under Judge John Pitchford. He resigned his position as Cashier of the Bank in 1908 and began the practice of law in Tahlequah.

Teehee was highly regarded in public life, serving as alderman and later as mayor of his home city to 1910.  He was elected Representative from Cherokee County to the Third State Legislature in 1910, and re-elected two years later to the Fourth Legislature, where constitutional law was his specialty.

Teehee was appointed [Register] of the United States Treasury and went to Washington, D.C. in 1914. His name appeared on all Federal notes and bonds during WWI, from 1915 to 1919, under President Woodrow Wilson. He was responsible for the Liberty Loans and other financial measures of the war and it is believed that he signed his name to documents representing more money than ever came under the control of another man in the history of the world at that time.

In 1917, Houston Teehee was a keynote speaker at the dedication of the statue of Sequoyah in the United State Capitol building.

He returned to Oklahoma and served for a number of years as an executive with Continental Asphalt and Petroleum Company headquartered in Oklahoma City.  He also served as Assistant Attorney General of Oklahoma (1926-27); was a member of the Supreme Commission of Oklahoma, representing the First Judicial District of the Supreme Court (1927-31).

He returned to make his home in Tahlequah and gave his time to his law practice.  He rendered great service to many leaders in affairs of the Cherokee nation, acting as counselor and advisor in matters affecting individuals as well as families and communities.  He was a member of Cherokee Lodge A.F. and A.M., the oldest Masonic Lodge in Oklahoma.  He was a deeply spiritual man and an ardent member and worker of the Presbyterian Church.  He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1942.

Mr. Teehee married Miss Haglund, daughter of Swedish immigrants, on December 11, 1898. He died at Tahlequah in 1953, survived by his wife. He had no children nor any living brothers or sisters at the time of his death.

Cherokee citizens have asked several news outlets to correct their articles to note Teehee’s historic and historical contributions. The Guardian is one of the few that has done so to date (see correction at story’s end).

If history matters to you — and it should — we hope you’ll subscribe now to the very first Native newsletter (we say in complete jest). Don’t get us wrong, you should sign up, we’re just not the first.

Happy Friday, Wiredians.