Sarah Winnemucca (1841-October 14, 1891) was the first Native American woman known to secure a copyright and to publish in the English language. Her book, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, is an autobiographical account of her people during their first forty years of contact with explorers and settlers.
Born "somewhere near 1844" in the Humboldt River and Pyramid Lake area of western Nevada, Sarah Winnemucca was the daughter of Chief Winnemucca (Po-i-to) of the Northern Paiute people. Her Paiute Indian name was Thocmetony or Shell Flower. Her grandfather, Chief Truckee (possibly Tru-ki-zo in Paiute) guided John C. Frémont during his 1843-45 survey and mapmaking expedition across the Great Basin to California. The friendships which Chief Truckee formed with the Frémont party provided an opportunity for his granddaughter to be educated in the household of William Ormsby of Carson City, Nevada. Sarah Winnemucca soon became one of only two Paiutes in Nevada able to read, write and speak English. At the behest of her grandfather she became a translator for the U.S. Army and, later, for government agents at Malheur Reservation, designated a reservation for the northern Paiute by a series of Executive Orders issued by President Ulysses S. Grant. Later she served in this same capacity at the Yakima Reservation.
As translator Sarah Winnemucca was often in the position of conveying to her tribe the words of military men and Indian Agents. This role put her in a difficult position both with her tribe and her employers: with her tribe for conveying what frequently proved to be lies and false promises, and with the employers for being a thorn in their side by drawing their attention to the plight of her people. A woman caught in the middle, she thus became a controversial figure both within and outside of the Native American community.
Following the 1878 Bannock War, in which members of her tribe participated, her people were forced to march to the Yakima reservation (in Washington Territory) where they endured great deprivation. Sarah Winnemucca began to lecture on the plight of her people across California and Nevada. During the winter of 1879 and 1880, she and her father, Chief Winnemucca, visited Washington and gained permission from Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz, for the Paiutes to return to Malheur at their own expense. However, this promise went unfulfilled for years.
- 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 Piutes, 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 Piutes and the greatest caution and care was necessary in dealing with them.
- Report of Yakama Agent, James H. Wilbur
- Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1881, p. 174 and 175.
- American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
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. Despite a bequest from Mary Peabody Mann and efforts to turn the school into a technical training center, Winnemucca'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, Nevada on October 14, 1891.
