Editor’s note: This is one in an occasional series on “forgotten” ancestors who may not be fully recognized today for their achievements.
Raymond Wilson
Special to ICT
Northern Paiute author and activist Sarah Winnemucca’s 1883 autobiography is considered the first book published by a Native American woman.
In her book, “Life Among the Piutes,” which uses historical spelling for the Indigenous peoples in the Western U.S., she harshly criticized American westward expansion and demanded the dominant society correct injustices by enacting policies to improve the political, social, and economic conditions for Native peoples.
Her work as an author, activist and interpreter made her the target of sharp criticisms before she finally gained recognition for her decades of work.
Winnemucca was born around 1844 in an area that is now part of the state of Nevada. Her Native name was Thocmetony, meaning Shell Flower. Both her grandfather, Chief Truckee, and her father, Chief Winnemucca, were Paiute leaders.
Living conditions in the Great Basin region were extremely difficult for her people, and she, like other Paiute women, used sticks to dig for roots and herbs and gathered seeds to grind for food.
Survival was imperative. Some non-Natives used the derogatory term, “Digger Indians,” when referring to the Native inhabitants.
Westward expansion brought White settlers and later miners to their homelands. Sarah feared the intruders, and resented how they treated her people. Her father harbored the same views.
Sarah’s grandfather, Truckee, however, worked with the Whites, believing that such a policy would help his people survive. In the 1840s, he helped guide emigrants crossing the Great Basin region, and later served with Lt. Col. John C. Fremont during the Mexican War in California.
Sarah and other Paiutes accompanied Truckee on some of his trips to California, and on occasion, she spent some time with White families and Paiutes who married Hispanics. As a result, she became more acquainted with White culture and worked as a house servant. In the process, she also learned English and Spanish.
Her formal education is unclear. Around 1860, she briefly attended a convent school in San Jose, California. However, non-Native parents complained about her being in classes with their children, resulting in her dismissal.
During the 1860s and 1870s, the Paiutes were victims of violent assaults and involved in wars, including the Pyramid Lake War (1860) and the Bannock War (1878). Sarah lost several family members during this chaotic period.
Indeed, in 1864, Sarah, her father, sister and others presented programs in Virginia City, Nevada, and in San Francisco, California, in hopes that White audiences would recognize that the Paiutes wanted to live in peace and be treated fairly. Their pleas fell on deaf ears.
Between the 1860s and the late 1870s, Sarah and other Paiutes were forced to live on several reservations: Pyramid Lake Reservation in Nevada, Camp McDermitt on the Nevada/Oregon boundary, Malheur Reservation in Oregon, and the Yakama Reservation in Washington Territory.
She continued her efforts to help her people at these reserves, first working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as an interpreter at Camp McDermitt and meeting with U.S. Army officials and speaking in San Francisco.
In 1875, Sarah again became an interpreter at Malheur Reservation, but was fired when she wrote letters to Army leaders and the BIA, complaining that the new Indian agent, who replaced a more popular one, was involved in corrupt activities.
Despite being fired, Sarah worked again as an interpreter and messenger during the Bannock War and as an agency interpreter at Yakama Reservation.
Attaining national recognition, she became more involved in speaking engagements and sending letters to Army leaders, government officials, and reform groups about the treatment of the Paiutes and other Natives. She met with President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, and later engaged in an eastern lecture tour.
In 1883, with the assistance of Elizabeth P. Peabody and Mary P. Mann, two well-known women reformers, she published her book, “Life Among the Piutes.”
Her book, activities and views over the decades caused increased resentment toward her from both Natives and non-Natives. Some Paiutes and other Natives criticized her several failed attempts to help them.
Non-Native politicians, missionaries, Army officers, journalists and others vehemently attacked her criticisms of American westward expansion and the violence and atrocities that resulted. Her personal life was also a target because she had been married three times and enjoyed gambling.
She persevered. In 1885, she founded a school for Paiute children at Lovelock, Nevada, and her eastern supporters, Peabody and Mann, provided some support.
The school was ahead of its time. It provided a bilingual education, children lived at home with their parents, no military-style uniforms were required and it included parents’ participation in the educational process. However, lack of needed support resulted in the school’s closing after three years of operation.
Winnemucca died on Oct. 17, 1891 at about age 47. Several decades passed before her significance as a major activist was recognized.
Besides delivering hundreds of lectures, her acculturated proposal of having Natives living on reservations properly protected by federal officials and treated as political, economic, and social equals are indeed noteworthy.
Posthumous awards include her being inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame in 1993 and the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994. Also in 1994, the Sarah Winnemucca Elementary School was named after her in Reno, Nevada, and in 2005, a statue of her went on display in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C.
Sources: Sarah Winnemucca, “Life Among the Piutes” (1883); Gae Whitney Canfield, “Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes” (1983); Sally Zanjani, “Sarah Winnemucca” (2001); Cari M. Carpenter and Carolyn Sorisio, eds., “The Newspaper Warrior” (2015).