The 2010 Native American $1 Coins signify the second year in a series of annually changing reverse designs for the strikes from the US Mint.
2010 Native American $1 Coins - Click to Enlarge
This process of changing the reverse designs on the strikes was brought about through the passage of the Native American $1 Coin Act by Congress. The Act was signed by President George W. Bush on September 20, 2007 to become Public Law 110-82. Under the Act, the reverse designs were required to showcase "images celebrating the important contributions made by Indian tribes and individual Native Americans to the development of the United States and the history of the United States," according to the text of the legislation. Accordingly, the reverse designs in the series all feature significant influences that Native Americans placed upon the growing country.
Aside from the new reverse design requirements, the only other significant change to these coins from the predecessor, the Sacagawea Dollar, was the inclusion of an edge inscription. Under the same authorizing Act previously mentioned, Congress required the edge to be inscribed with E PLURIBUS UNUM as well as the date of the strike taking them from the obverse and reverse of the coin where they had appeared on the previous dollar. The Mint also placed the mintmark on the edge.
All remaining specifications remained the same on the coins including being struck from a manganese brass over copper composition. This combination gives each strike a golden hue.
Glenna Goodacre designed the obverse design for the Native American $1 Coin. It is the same image of Sacagawea used one the dollar coin since 2000 and includes the Shoshone woman’s infant son portrayed strapped to her back. Sacagawea served as a guide to the Lewis and Clark Expedition taken through the mostly unexplored regions of the American wilderness from the years of 1804-1806. Also included are the inscriptions of LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST.
The reverse of the 2010 Native American $1 Coin reflects the theme of "Government—The Great Tree of Peace." It does so by showing a Hiawatha Belt with five arrows bound together within it. This design represents the Iroquois Confederacy, a loose diplomatic and political alliance between five different Native American nations that dated back to the 1400’s. The design was completed by Thomas Cleveland.
