Sarah Winnemucca (1844-1891) was an educator, author, and advocate who worked as an interpreter and fought to protect Indigenous rights. When she died, the New York Times called her “the most remarkable woman among the Piutes of Nevada.”
Sarah Winnemucca (1844-1891) was an educator, author, and advocate who worked as an interpreter and fought to protect Indigenous rights. When she died, the New York Times called her “the most remarkable woman among the Piutes of Nevada.”
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. This is Womanica.
Today, we’re talking about an educator, author, and advocate who worked as an interpreter and fought to protect indigenous rights. When she died, the New York Times called her “the most remarkable woman among the Piutes of Nevada.”
Let’s meet Sarah Winnemucca.
Sarah was born Thocmetony or “Shell Flower” around 1844. She was a Numa (also known as Northern Paiutes, the name Europeans gave them). Her tribe lived semi-nomadically, and moved through Nevada and Oregon.
Sarah first came into contact with white people when she was a child. Her grandfather, Chief Truckee was welcoming of the white men who invaded their land. He called them his brothers and sisters. He fought alongside them in wars, and served as a guide to various emigrant parties as they crossed the Great Basin. But Sarah’s father, Chief Winnemucca, was more suspicious.
One spring day, when Sarah was a child and her grandfather was away from home, they heard of white men coming. Fear passed over the tribe and they began to run away. But, because Sarah and her cousin were too small to keep up, her mother and aunt buried them and placed a sage bush on top of them.
Sarah later wrote: “Oh, can any one imagine my feelings buried alive, thinking every minute that I was to be unburied and eaten up by the people that my grandfather loved so much?”
Despite her grandfather’s fascination and love for the settlers, the tribe remained fearful of them. But it eventually became clear that they were not going to leave.
In the 1850s, she worked for white families, and it’s likely there that she got the name Sarah. She and her younger sister also lived with a white family for a time.
By the age of 14, Sarah could speak five languages, including English and Spanish. When she was 16, she was sent to a convent school in San Jose, California -- her grandfather, Chief Truckee’s dying wish. Some of Sarah’s wealthy classmates’ families objected, so she and her sister only stayed there a few weeks.
As settlers built towns and mines and increasingly took over what was once native territory, Sarah and her people were forced onto reservations. Life was difficult there. There wasn’t enough to eat, and the white people used the reservation land for grazing, while giving the Paiutes nothing in return. The relationship between the Paiutes and the white reservation agents was tense and violent.
Sarah’s language skills gained her jobs as an interpreter for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The job was complicated. Sarah wanted to advocate for her people, but doing so would eventually lose her the job. During the Bannock war of 1878, she served as a scout and translator for the U.S. Army.
Sarah witnessed a great deal of pain and suffering at the hands of the U.S. government. In 1879, the Paiutes were forced to move to another reservation 350 miles away in the dead of winter. Sarah was told that the president demanded the move. She later wrote:
“Every night I imagined I could see the thing called President. He had long ears, he had big eyes and long legs, and a head like a bull-frog or something like that. I could not think of anything that could be so inhuman as to do such a thing, – send people across mountains with snow so deep.”
In 1880, Sarah made it to the White House and met the president. The meeting was brief, and disappointing. And all of the government’s promises of tents and food for her people were quickly broken.
Sarah continued her fight. She drew up petitions and traveled around the country, lecturing on the ways in which her people were mistreated. And with the help of her friend and publisher, Elizabeth Peabody, she also took to writing. Sarah often wrote critiques of the way white people treated indigenous people. She wrote letters and articles that were reprinted in newspapers and magazines. And in 1883, she wrote “Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims” the first English book published by an indigenous woman in the U.S.
In 1885, Sarah opened a school for native children in Nevada. It was an innovative and safe space. At the time, the U.S. government was forcing native children to assimilate, convert to Christianity, and forget their customs, languages, and heritage. Sarah would not allow her students to be taken into the boarding school system. She acknowledged the importance and power of education, but not at the expense of losing the Paiute culture.
Sarah’s life came to an early end. She died in 1891 at her younger sister’s home.
All month, we’ve honored the legacies of Indigenous women. Tune in tomorrow for the beginning of a new theme.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!