I live in the same place where Sarah (Thocmetony) Winnemucca lived and breathed and I grew up in schools that never said her name. My teachers discussed Nevada’s early history by the means of how many pounds of silver the mines produced, and the “unfortunate but civilized” cannibals that died in our mountains (the Donner Party).
A woman who should have been The Most Famous Native American Woman by the end of the American-Imperialist era, Sarah Winnemucca has been all but erased from the US historical narrative. Half of the landmarks in northern Nevada are named after her, her grandfather Truckee, and her father Chief Winnemucca*, but the majority of our schools don’t bother to mention them. (*Paiutes don’t have chiefs; their white neighbors insisted.)
Sarah did so, so much. Often for so little - she won so many battles that were later ignored, overturned, or “officially” recognized but not locally. The freshly post-civil-war US government sought to economize the Native struggle, and Sarah fought back with the only thing she was allowed to fight with - words.
Like any Paiute survived the unpredictability of food and weather in the Nevada High Dessert, Sarah survived every battle she lost. She was a tree that sprouted two new branches to every limb cut off; she was a princess by White Title but also by the spirit of a willpower so great, the only definition that could be remotely applicable for it would have to be “R O Y A L”. She had no weapons but a voice, which was “very pretty to hear” according to many who heard her. (And she was heard by very many.)
Sarah is most known for her lectures. She traveled up and down the west and east coast, in an era that didn’t always include rail travel - in an era that didn’t always include horse travel. Years before any Native Americans began to gain any stage-fame, Sarah was preforming in little rooms crowded with 1860′s Western-Victorian women as (The Princess Sarah). In reality, the performance was a girl dressed in Fake Indian Clothes White People Expect lecturing them on the Paiute people. She would tell stories that charmed her audience but quickly focused lectures on the struggles of Native People, and Paiutes especially. Sarah lived during a time when it was appropriate for the local newspaper to suggest that they deal with the “Indian problem” via extermination.
But she did so much more than lecture. Sarah understood that her attention was needed more-or-less everywhere - the wives of the Men in Charge, the Armies of the Men in Charge, and the President of The Men In Charge.
She traveled back and forth between Native war parties during the Bannock War, working directly with U.S. Army Generals, endlessly negotiating for peace. She brokered for food whenever the government and/or locals decided to cut off their food supply (which was astoundingly often). In addition to learning English, she could to read and write (a time when illiteracy was common), and then learned Spanish after that. Just. You know. To talk suffrage with the Mexicans. Nbd.
She went to the President of the United States as an official “royal princess” with her father Chief** Winnemucca. She often helped beg for more land to grow more food, or to at least have the government supply it- the dessert is not an easily survivable place. Paiutes were forced to stay on reservations, and in the dessert, there just aren’t enough birds for bellies. (**Add “king” to the list of things that are Not Paiute, right up there with Chief.)
Ya’ll know what an Indian School is? Cultural eugenics. It was a program that kidnapped Native American children, stripped them of their given names, and taught them to act More White. Kids were shamed for doing anything that might be deemed “savage.” Sarah fought to have Paiute children taught by Paiute teachers. She did it, too, until all “Indian children” were required by law to attend boarding schools. Regardless of this loss, in my experience modern Paiutes are hugely into supporting the education of their children and preserving their culture.
NOT ONLY was she super politically involved as an activist, but Sarah was also pretty damn bold with her personal life. She married several times, and to white men. Biracial couples were illegal at several points in her life. Homegirl had SEVERAL, bless her heart.
Tl;dr Sarah Winnemucca should be a common household name, more common than Sacajawea or Pocahontas. She worked tirelessly for peace. Don’t erase her from our narrative.
Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims - autobiography by Sarah Winnemucca
Sarah Winnemucca, biography by Sally Zanjani
Or this really thin article on American National Biography Online. (The bottom of this article has a lot more sources that I -can confirm- are pretty solid. Wikipedia, however, is not “pretty solid” when cross-referenced with primary documents. I do not recommend.)
