Sarah Winnemucca
Sarah Winnemucca | |
---|---|
Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883) | |
Spouse(s) | Edward Bartlett (1872) Lewis H. Hopkins (1881) |
Parents |
|
Relatives | Truckee (grandfather) |
Sarah (née Winnemucca) Hopkins (c. 1844 – October 17, 1891) was a
Sarah Winnemucca was born near
At 27, Sarah began working in the
Winnemucca published
Since the late 20th century, scholars have paid renewed attention to Winnemucca for her accomplishments. In 1993, she was inducted posthumously into the
Winnemucca's legacy has been controversial. Some biographers have wished to remember her primarily for her activism and social work to better the conditions for her people, while others have criticized her for her tendency to exaggerate her social status among the Paiute. Among the Paiute, her assistance to the U.S. military at a time when they were at war with the Paiute has been criticized, as has her advocacy for assimilation of Natives to Anglo-American culture. Still, Paiute have also recognized her social work and activism for Indigenous rights.[7]
Early life and family
Born "somewhere near 1844" at
Sarah had an older sister Mary,[12] younger brother Natchez,[5] and sister Elma.[13] She and her family spent her early childhood in eastern Oregon and western Nevada.[14] She learned the ways of her people, including fishing and gathering plants.[14] At the age of six, Winnemucca traveled with her family to near Stockton, California, where the adults worked in the cattle industry. In 1857, her grandfather arranged for Winnemucca (then 13) and her sister Elma to live and work in the household of William Ormsby and his wife; he had a hotel and was a civic leader of Carson City, Nevada. The couple wanted a companion for their daughter, Lizzie. The Winnemucca girls also did domestic work in the house. They had a chance to improve their English and learn more about European-American ways.[15] After having some time to assimilate the difference between the two cultures,[14] Winnemucca particularly began to be at ease in going back and forth between Paiute and European-American culture. She was one of the few Paiute in Nevada who knew how to read and write English, and her family all spoke English.[5] She took on the English name Sarah. Winnemucca also spoke Spanish.[14]
Pyramid Lake War and stage
With the decreasing pressure of new migrants in the region attracted to the Washoe silver finds, Old Winnemucca arranged in 1859 to have his daughters returned to him again in Nevada. In 1860, open conflict occurred. At
The Paiute and whites reached a truce that lasted four years,[18] but it was a difficult time for the Paiute who lived on the Pyramid Lake Reservation, giving up their hunter-gatherer way of life.[14] After the first year, they did not receive the promised supplies from the government and did not have the training needed to be effective farmers. Many Paiute starved to death.[14] After Winnemucca begged for food for her people, military officials at Camp McDermit (later Fort McDermit) sent supplies.[14]
As a mark of development, Nevada was established as a distinct U.S. Territory, and James W. Nye was appointed as its first governor. When he came to the territory, he went to the Pyramid Lake Reservation, where he met Old Winnemucca, Young Winnemucca and the Paiute, who put on a grand display.[19] In October 1860, their grandfather Truckee died of a tarantula bite.[20]
For the next five years (1860–1865), Winnemucca and her family frequently traveled away from the reservation, performing on stage, either in Virginia City, Nevada at Maguire's Opera House, or in San Francisco. They were billed as the "Paiute Royal Family."[5] By this time, her father had taken a second, younger wife, with whom he had a young son.[5]
In Nevada, U.S. forces repeatedly acted against Native Americans to "remind them of who was in charge." The Natives were repeatedly accused of raids and cattle stealing.[5] In 1865, Almond B. Wells led a Nevada Volunteer cavalry in indiscriminate raids across the northern part of the state, attacking Paiute bands. While Winnemucca and her father were in Dayton, Nevada, Wells and his men attacked Old Winnemucca's camp, killing 29 of the 30 persons in the band, who were old men, women and children.[5]
The chief's two wives (including Winnemucca's mother) and infant son were killed.[5] Although Winnemucca's sister Mary escaped from camp, she died later that winter due to the severe conditions.[21] Her younger sister Elma was out of the area, as she had been adopted by a French family in Marysville, California. There Elma Winnemucca married John Smith, a white man, and moved with him to a white community in Montana and, later, Idaho.[13]
In 1868, about 490 Paiute survivors moved to a Camp McDermit, on the Nevada–Oregon border. They sought protection from the U.S. Army against the Nevada Volunteers. In 1872, the federal government established the
Teaching and interpreter
In 1871, at the age of 27, Winnemucca began working in the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Fort McDermitt as an interpreter, and later was invited to interpret at the
First marriage
Winnemucca married Edward Bartlett, a former First Lieutenant in the Army, on January 29, 1872, at
Bannock War
Parrish was replaced in the summer of 1876 by agent
In her 1883 book, Winnemucca recounted that Rinehart sold supplies intended for the Paiute people to local whites. Much of the good land on the reservation was illegally expropriated by white settlers. In 1878, virtually all of the Paiute and
During the Bannock War, Winnemucca worked as a translator for General
Move to Yakama Reservation
Following the Bannock War, the Northern Paiute bands were ordered from Nevada to the Yakama Indian Reservation (in eastern Washington Territory), where they endured great deprivation. A total of 543 Paiute were interned in what has been described as a "concentration camp."[5]
Winnemucca accompanied them to serve as a translator. Since she had an official job, she was not required to live on a reservation. Outraged by the harsh conditions forced on the Paiute, she began to lecture across California and Nevada on the plight of her people. During the winter of 1879 and 1880, she, her father, and two other Winnemucca visited Washington, D.C. to lobby for release of the Paiute from the Yakama Reservation.[5] They gained permission from Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz, for the Paiute to be allowed to return to Malheur, at their own expense.[30] Instead, the government decided to "discontinue" the Malheur Reservation in 1879, closing it.
Knowing the temper of the people through whom they must pass, still smarting from the barbarities of the war two years previous, and that the Paiutes, utterly destitute of everything, must subsist themselves on their route by pillage, I refused permission for them to depart... and soon after, on being more correctly informed of the state of affairs, the Hon. Secretary revoked his permission though no determination as to their permanent location was arrived at. This was a great disappointment to the Paiutes and the greatest caution and care was necessary in dealing with them.
Second marriage
In 1881, General
Lectures and writing
In 1883, the Hopkinses traveled east, where Winnemucca delivered nearly 300 lectures throughout major cities of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, seeking to heighten awareness of injustice against Native Americans.[14] The press reported her talks and sometimes referred to her as the "Paiute Princess"[35] or "Indian princess".[14]
In
After returning to Nevada in 1884, Winnemucca spent a year lecturing in San Francisco. When she returned again to Pyramid Lake, she and her brother built a school for Indian children at
After returning to Nevada in 1884, Winnemucca spent a year lecturing in San Francisco. When she returned again to Pyramid Lake, she and her brother built a school for Indian children at
The
Later years and death
Winnemucca spent the last four years of her life retired from public activity. She died of tuberculosis at her sister Elma Smith's home at
Legacy
- Anthropologist Omer C. Stewart has described Winnemucca's book about the Paiute as "one of the first and one of the most enduring ethnohistorical books written by an American Indian," frequently cited by scholars through the 20th century.[5]
- In 1993, Sarah Winnemucca was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.[41][42]
- In 1994, a Washoe County, Nevada elementary school was named in her honor.[43]
- In 1994, Sarah Winnemucca was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[44]
- In 2005, the state of Nevada contributed a statue of Winnemucca to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol.[45]
Works
By Winnemucca
- 1870, Winnemucca, Sarah, Letter ... to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Parker : Camp McDermit, Nevada, 1870 April 4, OCLC 85036391. The original letter was addressed to Major H. Douglass. Forwarded by him, with his report as Indian Superintendent, Nevada, to Ely Samuel Parker.
- 1883, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims. G.P Putnam's Sons. 1883. (new edition in 1994 ISBN 978-0-259-44619-4)
- 1885, Winnemucca, Sarah, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins letter, to Grover Cleveland, 1885 March 6, OCLC 1359275624
With Winnemucca or her papers or lecturers
- 1886 pamphlet, Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer; Abbott, Lyman (1886). Sarah Winnemucca's practical solution of the Indian problem : a letter to Dr. Lyman Abbot of the 'Christian Union'. Cambridge, Massachusetts: J. Wilson and Son. OCLC 860385045.
- 2015 Winnemucca, Sarah. Cari M. Carpenter; Carolyn Sorisio (eds.). The newspaper warrior : Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins's campaign for American Indian rights, 1864-1891. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-4368-2.. Based upon an anthology of publications about Winnemucca and her lectures .
Notes
- Northern Paiute, the Paiute had no such centralized leadership.
- ^ After the 1870 Marias Massacre by U.S. Army forces in Montana, President Grant had promoted a peace policy, appointing Quaker leaders as Indian agents to reservations and intending to eradicate problems of corruption that way.[29]
References
- ^ a b Canfield 1988, p. 4.
- ^ "Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (1844-1891)". Nevada State Historical Preservation Office. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
- ^ "SARAH WINNEMUCCA – Nevada Women's History Project". www.nevadawomen.org. Retrieved March 29, 2022.
- ^ University of Minnesotawebsite, accessed 11 February 204
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Omer Stewart, Review: "Gae Whitney Canfield, 'Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes', Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma, 1983", Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 5(2), 1983, accessed 12 February 2014
- ^ "Nevada Writers Hall of Fame: Sarah Winnemucca". University of Nevada, Reno. Retrieved November 30, 2017.
- ^ Fowler, Catherine. 1994. "Foreword" in Sarah Winnemucca, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, University of Nebraska Press, p. 3
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 94.
- ^ Senier, S. (2001). Voices of American Indian Assimilation and Resistance: Helen Hunt Jackson, Sarah Winnemucca, Victoria Howard.
- ^ Zanjani, S. (2004). Sarah Winnemucca. University of Nebraska Press.
- ^ "The Silver State (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 44.
- ^ a b Canfield 1988, p. 49.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Eves, Rosalyn (July 27, 2016). "Sarah Winnemucca Devoted Her Life to Protecting Native Americans in the Face of an Expanding United States". Smithsonian Magazine.
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 11.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 24–25.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 13, 24.
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 43.
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 33.
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 29.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 44–45.
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 92.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 94–99.
- ISBN 0-8032-4917-9.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 109–110.
- ^ Sarah Bartlett v. Edward C. Bartlett: Divorce Decree 1876. Nevada State Library, Archives, and Public Records Digital Collections.
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 106.
- ^ Howard, Major-General O. O. (1908). Toc-Me-To-Ne, An Indian Princess. St. Nicholas magazine, Scribner & Company. pp. 820–.
- ISBN 0-8032-9551-0.
- ^ "Today in History: October 14". Library of Congress. Retrieved April 11, 2010.
- ^ Wilbur, James H., Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1881, pp. 174, 175
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 211.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 252–253.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 248–253.
- ^ Canfield 1988, p. 171.
- ^ Maloney, Wendi (November 2, 2017). "Native American Heritage Month: Celebrating Sarah Winnemucca". Library of Congress Blog. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
- ^ a b Canfield 1988, p. 232.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 248–250, 254.
- ^ Canfield 1988, pp. 252–254.
- ^ Washburn, Kathleen. "Dawes Severalty Act". Oxford Bibliographies. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
- ^ "Hall of Fame Inductees". Reno Gazette-Journal. December 2, 1994. p. 49. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
- ^ "Nevada Writers Hall of Fame inductees from two worlds, eras". Reno Gazette-Journal. November 4, 1993. p. 31. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
- ISBN 978-0-8032-9921-4.
- ^ National Women's Hall of Fame, Sarah Winnemucca
- ^ "Celebrate Sarah Winnemucca". Reno Gazette-Journal. March 9, 2005. p. 1. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
Bibliography
- Canfield, Gae Whitney (1988). Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-2090-4.
Further reading
- Carpenter, C. M. (2003). "Tiresias Speaks: Sarah Winnemucca's Hybrid Selves and Genres." legacy, 19(1), 71–80. Chicago
- Hopkins, Sarah Winnemucca. The Newspaper Warrior: Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins's Campaign for American Indian Rights, 1864–1891 edited by Cari M. Carpenter and Carolyn Sorisio. (U of Nebraska Press, 2015) excerpt; anthology of her writings from her 1864 to 1891, focusing on the years 1879 to 1887.
- Lape, Noreen Groover. "'I Would Rather Be with My People, but Not to Live with Them as They Live': Cultural Liminality and Double Consciousness in Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins's" Life among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims," American Indian Quarterly (1998): 259–279.
- Lukens, M. (1998). Her" Wrongs and Claims": Sarah Winnemucca's Strategic Narratives of Abuse. Wíčazo Ša Review, 93–108.
- Morrison, Dorothy Nafus. Chief Sarah: Sarah Winnemucca's Fight for Indian Rights. Oregon Historical Society Press, 1990.
- Powell, M. (2005). "Princess Sarah, the Civilized Indian: The Rhetoric of Cultural Literacies in Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins's 'Life Among the Piutes'." Rhetorical Women: Roles and Representations, 63–80.
- Powell, M. D. (2006). Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins: Her Wrongs and Claims. American Indian Rhetorics of Survivance: Word Medicine, Word Magic, 69–91.
- Pritzker, Barry M. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples, Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-19-513877-1
- Scherer, Joanna Cohan. "The public faces of Sarah Winnemucca." Cultural Anthropology 3, no. 2 (1988): 178–204.
- Scholten, P. C. (1977). "Exploitation of ethos: Sarah Winnemucca and Bright Eyes on the lecture tour," Western Journal of Speech Communication, 41(4), 233–244.
- Tisinger, Danielle. "Textual Performance and the Western Frontier: Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins's" Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims"." Western American Literature (2002): 170–194.
External links
- Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). Full e-text online.
- Biography: "Sarah Winnemucca" Archived 2012-09-14 at the Wayback Machine, Nevada Women's History Project, University of Nevada, Reno
- Voices from the Gaps: "Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins", University of Minnesotawebsite
- "Sarah Winnemucca Statue Dedication". C-SPAN. March 19, 2005.