Life Among the Paiutes

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (1844 – 1891) was a Northern Paiute author, activist and educator. Winnemucca was born near Humboldt Lake, Nevada, into an influential Paiute family who were leading their community in pursuing friendly relations with the arriving groups of Anglo-American settlers. She was sent to study in a Catholic school in Santa Clara, California. When the Paiute War erupted between the Pyramid Lake Paiute and the settlers, including some who were friends of the Winnemucca family, Sarah and some of her family traveled to San Francisco and Virginia City to escape the fighting. They made a living performing on stage as "A Paiute Royal Family". In 1865 while the Winnemucca family was away, their band was attacked by the US cavalry, who killed 29 Paiutes, including Sarah's mother and several members of her extended family. Subsequently Winnemucca became an advocate for the rights of Native Americans, traveling across the US to tell Anglo-Americans about the plight of her people. When the Paiute were interned in a concentration camp at Yakima, Washington after the Bannock War, she traveled to Washington, DC to lobby Congress and the executive branch for their release. She also served US forces as a messenger, interpreter and guide, and as a teacher for imprisoned Native Americans. Winnemucca published Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), a book that is both a memoir and history of her people during their first forty years of contact with European Americans. It is considered the "first known autobiography written by a Native American woman." In 1993 she was inducted posthumously into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. In 2005, the state of Nevada contributed a statue of her by to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. In all the glimpses Mrs. Hopkins gives of the religion and moralities of the Piutes, we see the moral riches of their nature and traditions. Old Heckerwelder, in his history of the North American Indians, gave a multitude of facts of a like kind ; but it is only an Indian and an Indian woman who could do full justice to the subject. The story of this Indian’s devotion to her people must touch the hearts of all philanthropic people. It is one of the best known and most authentic books on Indian conditions ever published. CONTENTS. I. FIRST MEETING OF PAIUTES AND WHITES II. DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL MORALITIES III. WARS AND THEIR CAUSES IV. CAPTAIN TRUCKEE'S DEATH V. RESERVATION OF PYRAMID AND MUDDY LAKES VI. THE MALHEUR AGENCY VII. THE BANNOCK WAR VIII. THE YAKIMA AFFAIR