Sarah Winnemucca(1844 — 1891)
Sarah Winnemucca
États-Unis
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A Paiute activist and author from Nevada, Sarah Winnemucca defended the rights of her Native American people in the face of American colonization. In 1883, she became the first Native American woman to publish a book in English, a major testimony on the condition of Indigenous nations.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born around 1844 in northwestern Nevada among the Northern Paiute people
- Served as an interpreter and mediator between the Paiutes and the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars of the 1860s and 1870s
- Gave numerous lectures on the East Coast to denounce the treatment of Native Americans on the reservations
- Published in 1883 “Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims,” the first book written in English by a Native American woman
- Died in 1891 in Montana after founding a school for Paiute children
Works & Achievements
The first book published in English by a Native American woman; a landmark account of Paiute life and reservation policy.
From San Francisco to the major cities of the East, she alerted the public to the plight of her people and became one of the first celebrated Native American women orators.
In the service of General Howard, she translated, carried messages, and organized the rescue of her father, who was being held prisoner.
Received in Washington, she pleaded directly with the federal government to secure land and better conditions for the Paiutes.
She gathered thousands of signatures to demand outright land ownership for the Paiutes, securing the passage of a bill that was never carried out.
A school she opened near Lovelock, Nevada, where she taught Paiute children in their own language and in English—a rare model of bilingual education for the time.
Anecdotes
When Sarah was very little, a rumor was going around among the Paiutes that the white settlers ate Indians. One day, as white men were approaching, her relatives buried the children up to their necks and covered their faces with sage leaves to hide them. Left under the earth for hours, terrified at the thought of being dug up and eaten, she later recounted this scene in her book.
Her grandfather Truckee, who had guided American explorers, carefully kept a letter of recommendation that some white men had given him. Convinced that this paper could “speak” for him and prove his friendship, he called it his “rag friend” and proudly showed it to everyone he met.
During the Bannock War, in 1878, Sarah served as a scout and interpreter for the U.S. Army. At the risk of her life, she rode more than one hundred and fifty kilometers on horseback through hostile territory to free her father and other Paiutes held prisoner by Bannock fighters.
To move audiences in the great cities of the East, Sarah gave nearly three hundred lectures dressed in a fringed buckskin gown, presented under the name “Princess Sarah.” On stage, she skillfully denounced the misery inflicted on her people on the reservations.
In 1883, she became the first Native American woman to publish a book in English. Her memory is honored today by a statue in her likeness that represents the State of Nevada in the United States Capitol, in the National Statuary Hall, since 2005.
Primary Sources
I was born somewhere about 1844, but I am not sure of the precise time. I was a very small child when the first white people came into our country. They came like a lion, yes, like a roaring lion, and have continued so ever since, and I have never forgotten their first coming.
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?
It is the first outbreak of the American Indian in human literature, and has a single aim — to tell the truth as this woman saw it with her own eyes.
Key Places
Territory of the Northern Paiute where Sarah was born around 1844, in a Great Basin still little affected by colonization.
Nevada Paiute reservation where part of her family and her people lived, marked by the Pyramid Lake War in 1860.
Reservation where Sarah worked as an interpreter for the Indian agent and witnessed firsthand the abuses of the administration.
Federal capital where she traveled in 1880 to meet President Hayes and plead the Paiute cause, then present her petition to Congress.
Center of her lecture tours in the East, where her supporters Elizabeth Peabody and Mary Mann helped her publish her book in 1883.
Place where Sarah Winnemucca died in 1891, at her sister's home, near Henry's Lake, after withdrawing from public life.
