In 1879, Sarah Winnemucca, a Paiute from Nevada and the daughter of Chief Winnemucca, gave a series of lectures in San Francisco and Sacramento on the treatment of Indians by the Indian Service. Five years later her autobiography, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, was published.
Winnemucca then traveled throughout the country giving lectures on the conditions in Indian country, often charging the government with mismanagement of Indian affairs. Sara Winnemucca became the most recognized Indian woman of the late nineteenth century.
In her biographical sketch of Sarah Winnemucca in Notable Native Americans, Blanche Cox Clegg writes:
“Sarah Winnemucca was a skilled interpreter, an Army scout, a well-known lecturer, a teacher, and the first Indian woman to publish a book.”
Blanche Cox Clegg also writes:
“Sarah became nationally known for her fight for her people’s rights and for her struggle to keep the people between her people and the white newcomers.”
In her book Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes, Gae Whitney Canfield describes her this way
“Sarah Winnemucca was a self-educated Northern Paiute Indian who, in the short span of her life, sparred with Indian agents, local politicians, and the United States government to try to improve the living conditions and the education of her people.”
With regard to Paiute women, Sarah Winnemucca wrote:
“The women know as much as the men do, and their advice is often asked. We have a republic as well as you. The council-tent is our Congress, and anybody can speak who has anything to say, women and all.”
She also described women warriors who fought alongside their husbands.
Sarah Winnemucca was born about 1844 in western Nevada. Her father was Winnemucca, sometimes called Old Winnemucca by historians. Among the Paiute, women were frequently named for flowers and flora, and her Paiute name was Tocmectone (also spelled Thocmetony, meaning Shell Flower). When she was about 10, she went with her mother and siblings to live with her grandfather, Truckee, on a ranch near San Jose, California. In 1860, she attended St. Mary’s Convent School in San Jose for a short time. After a month in the school, she was discharged because the non-Indian parents objected to having Indians in the school.
While in California, she learned, English, Spanish, and several Indian languages. Her facility in learning languages enhanced her abilities as an interpreter.
In 1864 Sarah, her sister Elma, and her father Winnemucca, performed at the Sutfliff’s Music Hall in Virginia City, Nevada. Before the first performance, Winnemucca talked to a crowd in front of the International Hotel and Sarah translated into English. After the talk, a hat was passed, and money collected for him. Following the performance in Virginia City, Winnemucca, his daughters, and eight Paiute men performed in a “Tableaux Vivants” at the Metropolitan Theatre in San Francisco. In her book Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes, Gae Whitney Canfield reports:
“The program bore little relationship to the true life of the Paiutes, but it did fulfill the public’s notion of a good stage show, such as they might expect from an Indian troupe.”
In 1866 some of the Paiute bands in the Snake River region under the leadership of Paulina and Weawea rebelled against the United States. The U.S. military asked Sarah and her brother Nachez to come to Fort McDermitt, Nevada to discuss the relationships between the Paiute and the government. She was also asked to help persuade her father to bring his people to the Pyramid Lake Reservation. With her knowledge of both English and Paiute, she was hired by the army as their official interpreter to the Shoshone and Paiute.
In 1871, Sarah and her brother Natchez travelled to San Francisco where they met with General John Schofeld. They then went to Gold Hill, Nevada where she met with Senator John Jones. In both meetings she complained about the mistreatment of the Paiutes by the Indian agents. Both General Schofeld and Senator Jones, however, claimed that this problem was not under their jurisdiction.
While in San Francisco, Sarah wrote to General E.O.C. Ord, the commander of the Pacific division. In her letter she concluded:
“We know full well that the Government has been, and is still, willing to provide us with all we need, but I must inform you that it never gets past these Agents’ hands, and they reap all the benefit whilst we have all the suffering.”
In response to the allegations in the letter, C.A. Batemen, the Agent for the Walker River Reservation, claimed that Sarah Winnemucca was a fake, that she was not the daughter of Chief Winnemucca, that she had never been on the reservation, and that she had never held council with the Paiutes.
With regard to the response by the Agent for the Pyramid Lake Reservation, Gae Whitney Canfield writes:
“Balcom was even stronger in his vehemence against her, questioning her moral integrity rather than addressing the points of her argument.”
Balcom resigned as Indian agent claiming that the position was not compatible with his higher calling as a missionary.
In 1872, a reporter for the Nevada State Journal interviewed Sarah Winnemucca about Indian reservations. She told him:
“Our agent is continually promising farm implements, but they never come, He don’t want them for should my people raise their own provisions his place would be worth little. Then again, I know that the agent has been in the habit of renting the reservation to stockraisers, putting the rent in his own pocket.”
After the Paiutes were forced to move to the Malheur Reservation in Oregon, Sarah became friends with the Indian agent, Samuel Parrish. She felt that his agricultural program was beneficial to the Indians. In 1875, Parrish hired her as his interpreter. In addition, she also taught in the local school.
Four years later, the new Indian agent fired Sarah because she had complained that the teacher and other employees were cheating the Indians at cards. The new agent also told the tribes that the reservation did not belong to the Indians but to the government. Under the new regulations, the Indians had to work for $1 per day and with this money they were to buy their food and clothing from the government store. At the government store, blankets sold for $6 and better-quality blankets sold for $3 off the reservation. If the Indians did not like the new policies, the agent told them, they could leave.
During the 1878 Bannock War, Sarah was hired by General O.O. Howard as an interpreter. She also helped the army track the Bannock from southwestern Idaho into eastern Oregon. She persuaded her father and about 75 of his people to escape from the Bannock camp and to the safety of an army post. In spite of her aid to the army, the peaceful Paiute were relocated to the Yakama Reservation in Washington.
Concerning the relocation of the Paiutes to the Yakama Reservation, some 350 miles from the Malheur Reservation, Blanche Cox Clegg writes:
“It was winter, and the Paiutes did not have adequate clothing. Many people died during the terrible trip, and others, including Mattie [her sister-in-law], died soon after.”
When they arrived at the Yakama Reservation, the Indian agent had not been forewarned and there was no extra food or shelter for them. The Paiutes were herded into a hastily built shed 150 feet long. Gae Whitney Canfield writes:
“The snow was waist-deep, and there was no wood or fuel. Many people died. When they saw the conditions in which they were to live, they lost hope.”
Over the years, Sarah spoke out about the mistreatment of her people, sending complaints to anyone she thought might help. When she arrived in San Francisco to deliver her public lectures, the newspapers headlined her as “Princess Sarah.” The San Francisco Chronicle reported:
“Sarah has undergone hardships and dared dangers that few men would be willing to face, but she has not lost her womanly qualities, and succeeded during her visit in coaxing into her lap two little timid ‘pale-faced’ children, usually shy of strangers, who soon lost their fear of her dark skin, won by her warm and genial ways. She speaks with force and decision, and talks eloquently of her people. Her mission, undertaken at the request of Chief Winnemucca, is to have her tribe gathered together again at their old home in Nevada, where they can follow peaceful pursuits and improve themselves.”
One columnist wrote:
“The lecture was unlike anything ever before heard in the civilized world—eloquent, pathetic, tragical at times; at others her quaint anecdotes, sarcasms and wonderful mimicry surprised the audience again and again into bursts of laughter and rounds of applause.”
In her public lectures in San Francisco and Sacramento, Sarah argued that the peaceful Paiute had a right to return to the Malheur Reservation. Gae Whitney Canfield writes:
“She wanted her audiences, who sat in the luxury of a comfortable auditorium, to understand her position and help her people.”
She told of how the Christian Indian agent for the reservation stole from the Paiutes while telling them to be good and honest.
When federal officials got word of her negative criticism of the Indian Service, they brought Sarah, her father, and other Paiutes to Washington, D.C. in 1880. Here she talked with federal officials and again made the case for mismanagement. She argued for the rights of her people to return to the Malheur Reservation and manage their own affairs. While the Secretary of the Interior agreed that the Paiute had the right to return to the Malheur Reservation, the necessary funding for the return was not provided.
While in Washington, the Indian Office did its best to keep newspaper reporters away from Sarah. After one reporter managed to get an interview, she was called into the office of the Secretary of the Interior and told:
“I don’t think it will be right for you to lecture here after the government has sent for you, and your father and brother, and paid your way here. The government is going to do right by your people now. Don’t lecture now; go home and get your people back on the reservation; get them located properly; and then if you want to come back, … we will pay your way here, and back again.”
To counteract the negative publicity generated by Sarah Winnemucca, countercharges about her good character were soon circulated. The Indian agent from the Malheur Reservation claimed that Sarah Winnemucca was a notorious, untruthful, drunken prostitute. Her military friends, including General Howard, however, defended her.
In 1881 a Paiute delegation, which included Sarah Winnemucca, met with President Rutherford B. Hayes. President Hayes came into the room and pontificated about Indian assimilation. The entire meeting lasted for about five minutes.
In 1881, General Howard gave Sarah a job teaching Indian children at the army post in Vancouver, Washington. The children were prisoners of war—from the Sheepeater and Weiser Shoshone tribes-- who had been captured during the Bannock Indian War.
From 1883 to 1884, she toured eastern cities giving about 300 lectures on Indian rights. Her lectures included “The Indian Agencies” and “The Indian Question as Viewed from an Indian Standpoint.” Gae Whitney Canfield writes:
“She brought a new awareness to her audiences of the plight of the American Indian: their lack of land, sustenance, citizenship, and the rights that go with citizenship.”
During this time, she met a number of notables including Mary Tyler Mann (the widow of Horace Mann), Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (Mary Tyler Mann’s sister), Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Senator Henry Dawes. Her book, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, would be edited by Mrs. Mann.
She returned to Nevada and in 1885 opened a school for Paiute children in Lovelock. With regard to education, Sarah Winnemucca wrote:
“It seems strange to me that the Government has not found out years ago that education is the key to the Indian problem. Much money and many precious lives would have been saved if the American people had fought my people with Books instead of Powder and lead.”
The school had financial support from a group of non-Indian women in the east as well as the government. Among those who supported the school was Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody in Boston, who raised money in Sarah’s behalf by various public appeals. The school was often called the Peabody Indian School in honor of its benefactor. In her biographical sketch of Sarah Winnemucca in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Catherine Fowler describes the school experience this way:
“Backed by Elizabeth Peabody, a pioneer in kindergarten education, Sarah successfully operated the school for two years (1886-1887). However, attempts by Peabody to have the school federally funded came to nothing.”
The Indian Rights Association inspected the school and reported that Sarah Winnemucca had no claim to Paiute leadership. The Association accused her of a variety of “immoralities and vices.”
Sarah Winnemucca died in 1891 at her sister’s home in Henry’s Lake, Idaho. She was buried in an unmarked grave. The New York Times printed her death notice and a review of her life. Colonel Frank Parker wrote:
“She was the only Indian on this coast who ever took any prominent part in settling the Indian question, and as such her memory should be respected.”
General O.O. Howard wrote:
“She did our government great service, and if I could tell you but a tenth part of all she willingly did to help the white settles and her own people to live peaceably together I am sure you would think, as I do, that the name of Toc-me-to-ne [or Shell-flower] should have a place beside the name of Pocahontas in the history of our country.”
Catherine Fowler writes:
“Sarah Winnemucca was a remarkable woman whose life and works had a direct impact on the course of nineteenth-century Indian affairs. Although her accommodationist positions, and particularly her association with the military, did not make her universally popular among her own people, she nonetheless was dedicated to their welfare.”
Indians 101/201
Twice each week, Indians 101/201 explores various American Indian topics. Indians 201 is an expansion of an earlier essay. More Indian biographies from this series:
Indians 101: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Writer, Musician, and Activist
Indians 101: Susette La Flesche, Indian Activist
Indians 101: Ilchee, a Powerful Chinook Woman
Indians 101: Sacagawea (Sacajawea)
Indians 201: Dr. Susan LaFlesche, Omaha Physician
Indians 201: Natawista, a Trader's Wife
Indians 201: Mourning Dove, first American Indian woman novelist
Indians 201: Mary Musgrove Bosomworth, Creek translator, leader