A century ago on Nov. 7, 1922, Tlingit translator and civil rights advocate Tillie Paul Tamaree helped Charlie Jones, the seventh Chief Shakes, vote in a Wrangell municipal election. Her actions led to a court case that would secure the right to vote for Alaska Natives two years before the federal Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 extended citizenship to Native people across the United States.

When she was 12 years old, Tamaree entered the Amanda McFarland Home for Girls in Wrangell to avoid an arranged marriage to a Tsimshian man over twice her age. While there, she converted to Presbyterian...