Guest Author - Phyllis Doyle Burns
This article was written by our previous editor, Phyllis Doyle Burns, and all rights are reserved. For inquiries and comments, please contact the current editor, Jane Winkler.
When I think of my past life, and the bitter trials I have endured, I can scarcely believe I live, and yet I do; and, with the help of Him who notes the sparrow’s fall, I mean to fight for my down-trodden race while life lasts.
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, 1883
Life Among The Paiutes
Sarah Winnemucca was born in western Nevada, in the Humboldt Sink, sometime around 1844. Sarah herself was not sure of the year she was born. Her name at birth was Thocmentony, Shell Flower. Sarah was the first Native American woman to publish in the English language and secure a copyright. Her book, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, was an autobiographical account of her people, the Paiutes, during their first forty years of European contact.
Sarah lived in two worlds. She was born into the old ways, the traditions and freedom of her people. Much of her adult life, however, was spent among the white society. Living in two worlds is not an easy burden to carry.
Some of her people saw her as a collaborator with the U.S. Army who killed many of their people. Historians see her writing as an important primary source of the Paiutes and their history. She was an activist and has received positive attention for her works and efforts to help her people. The Nevada Writers Hall of Fame inducted her into the society in 1993. A bronze statue by sculptor Fredrich Victory stands in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. Replicas of this statue can be seen around Nevada.
Sarah's father was Chief Winnemucca, an influential leader of a small Paiute band. Her grandfather was Truckee (Tru-ki-zo. Truckee was friendly with the white peoples and guided John C. Fremont in 1843-45 with a survey and map expedition across the Great Basin into California. Truckee also fought in the Mexican-American War.
Truckee wanted Sarah to be educated in the ways of the white people. To accomplish this goal, he took her to the home of William Ormsby in Carson City, Nevada, in 1858. Sarah quickly became one of the very few Paiutes at that time in Nevada who could read and write in English.
William Ormsby was killed in 1860, during the first battle of the Pyramid Lake War. In 1872, Sarah's family moved to the Malheur Reservation in the state of Oregon, which was for the Bannock and the Northern Paiute. Sarah taught in a local school there and became interpreter for Samuel Parrish, the Indian Agent for the reservation. Parrish established an agricultural program and worked well with the Paiutes.
When William Rinehart replaced Parrish as agent, things began to change for the Paiute for the worse. Rinehart refused to pay the Paiute workers for their agricultural labor and alienated many tribal leaders. Conditions at the reservation became intolerable and supplies meant for the Paiutes were sold by Rinehart to white settlers. In 1878 people started leaving the reservation to fend for themselves.
This is when the Bannock War began and Sarah worked as translator, scout and message carrier for the U.S. Army. The Army held her in high regard. Because Sarah also held the army in high regard, she advocated military administration of the reservations in hopes of a better life for her people.
When the Paiute were forced to the Yakima Indian Reservation in the state of Washington, after the Bannock War, Sarah began a series of lectures on the plight of her people. She lectured across California and Nevada. Because she had a job with the army, she was not required to live on the reservation in Yakima and was free to travel. She went to Washington with her father to speak with Carl Schurz, then the Secretary of the Interior. Sarah received permission from Schurz to let the Paiutes return to Malheur Reservation, but it had to be at their own expense. The promise from Schurz went unfulfilled for years.
Sarah met Lewis H. Hopkins in San Francisco, California, while on a lecture tour. They were married and Hopkins supported her dedication and efforts. In Boston, she received help for promoting her speaking career from two sisters, Elizabeth Peabody and Mary Peabody Mann. Mary helped Sarah to compile her lectures into a book, Life Among the Paiutes, which was published in 1883.
Back in Nevada, Sarah built a school for Native American children. The school promoted the lifestyle and language of her people. The school was in operation until 1887 when the Dawes Severalty Act required Native American children to be enrolled in English boarding schools.
In 1887, Sarah's husband died. Sarah spent the last few remaining years of her life in seclusion. She died in 1891 from tuberculosis.
*******
For your reading pleasure:
, ,
