The Sac and Fox Nation (Sauk language: Thâkîwaki) is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Sauk and Meskwaki (Fox) Indian peoples. They are based in central Oklahoma.
Originally from the Lake Huron and Lake Michigan area, they were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma in the 1870s and are predominantly Sauk. The Sac and Fox Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area (OTSA) is the land base in Oklahoma governed by the tribe.
James Francis Thorpe (Meskwaki: Wa-Tho-Huk; May 22 or 28, 1887 – March 28, 1953) was an American athlete who won Olympic gold medals and played professional football, baseball, and basketball. A citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, Thorpe won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics (one in classic pentathlon and the other in decathlon).
Thorpe lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the contemporary amateurism rules. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored Thorpe's Olympic medals with replicas, after ruling that the decision to strip him of his medals fell outside of the required 30 days. Official IOC records still listed Thorpe as co-champion in decathlon and pentathlon until 2022, when it was decided to restore him as the sole champion in both events.
The Sauk or Sac (Sauk: Thâkîwaki) are Native Americans and Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their historical territory was near Green Bay, Wisconsin. Today they have three tribes based in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Their federally recognized tribes are:
They are closely allied with the Meskwaki people. Their Sauk language is part of the Algonquian language family.