Columbia Eneutseak(1893-1959)

Columbia Eneutseak (also known as Nancy Columbia) was the first known Inuit professional actor in the history of film. She and her mother Esther had traveled from Labrador in Canada to be a part of the Eskimo Village at the Chicago World's Fair in 1892. Columbia was born in Chicago on January 16, 1893 and would spend much of her life touring the U.S. and Europe including the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1901. At that time, the Edison Manufacturing Company had come to Buffalo to film documentaries on the travelling Inuit in their "Esquimaux Village". From 1910-1920, Columbia appeared in minor roles portraying Plains Indians with the Selig Polyscope Company and the Triangle Film Corporation. Her last known film was The Last of the Mohicans (1920) in which she also played a minor role as a Native American. In later years she suffered the debilitating effects of a stroke and died in 1959.