1 Dollar Chief Tecumseh

The Sovereign Nation of the Shawnee Tribe gained federal recognition in 2000, just two years before this issue. The timing matters: newly recognized tribes frequently struck coins in the early 2000s as both a revenue mechanism and an assertion of sovereign authority, a practice that drew scrutiny from the U.S. Treasury over whether such pieces constituted legal tender instruments in interstate commerce.

Tecumseh died at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813. His body was never conclusively identified — multiple accounts of who killed him, including a persistent claim involving Richard Mentor Johnson, were politically exploited for decades afterward.