Women's Rights & Issues
Related: About this foruma biography of the day--sarah winnemucca
Sarah Winnemucca
Sarah Winnemucca (born Thocmentony or Tocmetone,[1] Paiute: Shell Flower) (ca. 1844 October 17, 1891) was a prominent female Native American activist and educator, and an influential figure in the United States' nineteenth-century Indian policies. [2] Winnemucca was notable for being the first Native American woman known to secure a copyright and to publish in the English language.[citation needed] She was also known by her married name, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, under which she was published. Her book, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, is an autobiographical account of her people during their first forty years of contact with explorers and settlers.
Sarah was a person of two worlds. At the time of her birth her people had only very limited contact with Euro-Americans; however she spent much of her adult life in white society. Like many people of two worlds, she may be judged harshly in both contexts. Many Paiutes view her as a collaborator who helped the U.S. Army kill her people. Modern historians view her book as an important primary source, but one that is deliberately misleading in many instances.[citation needed] Despite this, Sarah has recently received much positive attention for her activism. She was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame in 1993, and in 2005 a statue of her by sculptor Benjamin Victor was added to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol.
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Knowing the temper of the people through whom they must pass, still smarting from the barbarities of the war two years previous, and that the Paiutes, utterly destitute of everything, must subsist themselves on their route by pillage, I refused permission for them to depart . . . and soon after, on being more correctly informed of the state of affairs, the Hon. Secretary revoked his permission though no determination as to their permanent location was arrived at. This was a great disappointment to the Paiutes and the greatest caution and care was necessary in dealing with them.
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After returning to Nevada, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins built a school for Indian children which was to promote the Indian lifestyle and language. The school operated briefly, until the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 required Indian children to attend English-speaking boarding schools.[citation needed] Despite a bequest from Mary Peabody Mann and efforts to turn the school into a technical training center, Sarah's funds were depleted by the time of her husband's death in 1887, and she spent the last four years of her life retired from public activity. She died at her sister's home in Henry's Lake, Idaho of tuberculosis.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Winnemucca
Quiet_Dem_Mom
(599 posts)It is a beautiful statue. The sculptor, Benjamin Victor, was only 26 at the time it was commissioned. The way the fringes of her skirt are flared out, it makes you think you may have just missed Sarah twirling.
The plaque on the statue says:
Sarah Winnemucca
[facsimile of her signature, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins]
18441891
Nevada
Defender of Human rights
Educator
Author of first book by a Native woman