SARAH WINNEMUCCA:In Her Footsteps…

From Pyramid Lake to the U.S. Capitol

A Curriculum by Dr Linda Karen Millerfor the Nevada Women’s History Project

SARAH WINNEMUCCA:In Her Footsteps…

From Pyramid Lake to the U.S. Capitol

A Curriculum by Dr Linda Karen Millerfor the Nevada Women’s History Project

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Sarah Winnemucca:In Her Footsteps

• This curriculum is to be used after viewing “Sarah Winnemucca: In Her Footsteps” produced by Gwen Clancy

• The following images represent important people and places in Sarah’s life. Identify the importance of each.

• For further information, read the documents describing the events in more detail.

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Nevada History Standards• 7.8.3 Discuss and analyze the interactions between settlers

and Native Americans during the westward expansion.• 7.84 Describe the contributions of Sarah Winnemucca

Hopkins to Native Americans in Nevada and the United States.

• 7.12.3 Describe federal policy toward Native Americans including: Indian boarding schools and the reservation system.

• 7.12.5 Describe the role of farming, railroads, mining in the settlement of the West.

• 2.0 History Skills: Students will use social studies, vocabulary and concepts to engage in inquiry, research, social studies analysis and decision making skills.

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Chief Winnemucca

• Photo: Old Winnemucca. Nevada State Museum, Carson City

• This illustration first appeared in Dan DeQuille’s History of the Big Bonanza (1876, fig. opp. P. 266) and a similar one is shown in Thompson and West’s History of Nevada (1881, fig. opp. P. 144).

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Chief Winnemucca, contd.• The name Winnemucca has many meanings. One was

Mubetawaka, “man with hole in his nose”, the name coming from the pierced nasal septum in which he wore a stick or bone about 4 inches long. This nose-pin is seen in this picture. Thompson and West say that Winnemucca’s Indian name was Po-i-to.

• The feather headdress which Winnemucca wears is not original to Nevada but is similar to those worn by Central California Indians. Winnemucca visited this area.

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• Photo: Courtesy: Nevada State Museum, Carson City6

Indian Tent

Pyramid Lake Houses

• The conical tent or tipi was not known to these people. After the Indians could secure canvas they learned to use this material to cover the frame of a temporary structure.

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WikkiupPhoto: Courtesy Dr. Linda Miller from Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort

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Pyramid LakeSarah’s Ancestral Home.

Dr. Miller and Carrie Townley Porter with Sarah Winnemucca family members Sherry Mendez and her mother Dorothy Ely and Sherry’s daughter at Pyramid Lake Sept 2007.Photo: Courtesy Nevada State

Library and Archives 9

Pyramid Lake

• In 1866 Sarah left the Comstock to live with Natchez and his wife on the Pyramid Lake reservation. It was here that Sarah witnessed first hand the cruelties of the reservation life. This was the basis for her crusade that became her passion for the rest of her life.

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Pyramid Lake Indian Reservationwww.scenicnevada.org

Genoa

• Sarah and her sister were sent off to live in Genoa at the Ormsbys. A Mormon fort was located here.

Photo: Library of Congress11

The Ormsbys

• Major Ormsby was forty-three at the time of his arrival in the Carson Valley of 1857. He had married a sixteen year old Kentucky girl, Margaret Trumbo, when he was thirty. They had a girl named Lizzie.

• It was in the Ormsbys’ home that Sarah learned her first knowledge of the white world. Sarah and her sister appeared to help with household tasks and being playmates for Lizzie in exchange for learning English.

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Mrs. Ormsby

Photo: Courtesy Nevada State Museum Carson City 13

Major Ormsby

Photo: Courtesy: Nevada State Museum Carson City

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Judge Bonnifield• Mac Bonnifield acted as

Sarah’s attorney when she was accused of stabbing a man who had attacked her in her dwelling. Sarah cut his face from eye to neck. Bonnifield, an advocate of Women’ s rights, assembled character witnesses. The D.A. moved to dismiss the case. She appeared at the Humboldt County Courthouse.

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Carson City 1875

Photo: (see bibliography)

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• It was here that Sarah tried to drum up support for her cause. She tried to testify before the state legislature but there is no indication from the journals that she was allowed to testify.

Virginia City

• With the gold and silver mining, Virginia City was a “24 hour town”. But Sarah’s people were starving. She made an appeal to the people to help her people. A parade stopped in front of this hotel. Here Sarah translated Winnemucca’s speech proclaiming friendship for whites and refusal to go to war against them.

Photo: Courtesy Nevada State Library and Archives 17

Mining: 1864

Photo: Courtesy Nevada State Library and Archives

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Sarah at Steen’s Mountain

The Oregonian (Portland, OR) “A Pacific-Coast Pocahontas: At True Tradition of the Nez Perce War” by Glenn N. Ranck. Sunday Oregonian, August 5, 1906, p. 44.

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Lecturing

• Sarah’s lectures were the first efforts by an Indian leader to win the hearts of the people and bring pressure on the government to change policy. She was a teacher, an interpreter, and a volunteer for service in the Bannock War. She was becoming a popular lecturer and something of a celebrity.

Photo: Courtesy Nevada Historical Society

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Sarah Winnemucca• This lecture attire was described

thus “Her apparel was of dressed deerskin, buff-colored and heavily fringed with beads, reaching a little below her knees and displaying her legs encased in red leather leggings and a pair of moccasins trimmed to match her dress. The pendant at her side was an handsomely embroidered pouch. Her black hair which reached below her waist was brushed smoothly back from her forehead”.

• (San Francisco Call: Oct. 18, 1883)• Photo: Courtesy NSLA

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San Francisco• Sometime during the late 1870’s

Sarah began to give public lectures on Indian life and on the outrageous treatment of the Nevada Indians by the Federal Government. She visited San Francisco several times and summaries of her talks appeared in newspapers. ( see documents) Although she wore this as early as 1879, this appears to be an older photo.

• From 1883-84 Sarah took the East by storm as she lectured more than 300 times in New England, and Washington, D.C.

Photo: Courtesy Nevada Historical Society 22

Sarah’s Lectures• Sarah Winnemucca achieved a fair degree of fame,

and is said to have gone East and given a series of lectures. This trip brought her into contact with Elizabeth Peabody and Mrs. Horace Mann, widow of famous educator Horace Mann, who apparently helped Sarah get the manuscript of her book, Life Among the Piutes, in shape and found her a publisher in Boston. It is not known if the book made money for her. It combines the history of her tribe and the destruction of the Paiute culture with Sarah’s autobiography. It was intended to win sympathy for the Paiutes. It was the first book written by an Indian woman. Her husband Lewis Hopkins might have researched for her at the Library of Congress. However it appears that through her lectures, she stirred up enough public interest to cause some alarm among officials of the Department of the Interior.

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Mary Peabody Mannwww.nwhm.org

Elizabeth Peabodywww.nwhm.org

The Winnemucca Family• Sarah along with her father, Old

Winnemucca, and her brother Natchez, were brought to Washington at government expense and there interviewed by the then Secretary of the Interior Schurz. Her account of this experience indicates clearly that official Washington considered her a nuisance and troublemaker but at the same time a power to deal with.

• Photo: Courtesy Nevada Historical Society24

Washington D.C.• The Winnemuccas set out for the

East in January 1880. There were two meetings with the Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz. They also met President Hayes at the White House. Her people were promised tents but they never arrived. Although Sarah received invitations to speak at other events, officials thought this was unethical as she was traveling at government expense.

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President Rutherford B. Hayes. www.classroomhelp.com

Washington, D. C. 1884

• Sarah made a second trip to Washington in April 1884. Here she met with President Chester Arthur and Secretary of Interior Henry Tiller. This trip was less successful than the previous one. However, she did testify before Congress on April 22, 1884.

• (see condensed version in documents)

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President Chester A. Arthur. Journeytohistory.com

Sarah’s Efforts

• Sarah was told to go back home and tell her people that they would be given canvas for tents and food. She did this but she relates in her book that the government failed to fulfill its promise. Her efforts on behalf of her people were to be admired but did not ever accomplish much because she was fighting a corrupt and powerful government agency.

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Sarah

• The picture is one of Sarah in Caucasian dress and beneath it is written “Your Loveing Sister Sarah Winnemucca.” It is undocumented but probably dates from about 1880.

• Photo: Courtesy: Nevada Historical Society

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Carson City 1884

•Sarah helped with an incident where a Chinese man was falsely accused of a crime. Sarah intervened into a crowd of angry Paiutes and prevented an uprising in Carson’s China town. A Paiute had been murdered not by the Chinese but by a Washoe.

Photo: Courtesy Nevada State Museum, Carson City

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Henry’s Lake Idaho

This was an isolated paradise of wildlife. Sarah’s sister Elma and her white husband, John Smith, had lived there since 1880. In 1889 he mysteriously died.

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On October 16, 1891 Sarah also died after having a large dinner with chokecherry wine. She doubled over in pain and collapsed. The exact cause of death has never been determined. The site of her burial is also a mystery.

Henry’s Lake Idaho www.visitidaho.org

Dorothy Ely

Reflections from Dorothy Ely: Great Granddaughter of Sarah Winnemucca's brother Nathchez."Sarah was not talked about much in our younger days and we were not taught Indian history in school..she was our great grandmother of which I have always been very proud..."

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Review• After viewing the video and reading the documents, answer

the following questions:• 1) Describe the contributions of Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins

to Native Americans in Nevada and the United States.• 2) Describe the role of farming, railroads, and mining in the

settlement of the West.• 3) Discuss and analyze the interactions between settlers and

Native American during the westward expansion.• 4) On a map of Nevada locate: Lovelock, Virginia City, Carson

City, Pyramid Lake and Steen’s mountain.• 5) Reader’s Theater: Use the Congressional testimony as a

Reader’s Theater.

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Bibliography• Carson City photo: Corbusier, William T., 1971. Verde to San Carlos. Recollections of a famous

Army Surgeon and His Observant Family on the Western Fronteri 1869-1886. Illustrated by Harold A. Wolfinbarger, Jr. Tuscon, Arizona.

• Ely, Dorothy, Letter to Dr. Miller, March 2009.• Heizer, Robert. Notes on Some Paviotso Personalities and Material Culture.The Nevada State

Museum Anthropological Papers No. 2, (Carson City, Nevada) January 1960.• http://memory.loc.gov.cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/fsaall:@field(Number+@bandfsa+8b19820)

First permanent settlement in state was made in 1850 at Genoa, Nevada. Arthur Rothstein photographer; Farm Security Administration Collection (Genoa)

• http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/oct.14.html• Oregoninan “A Pacific-Coast Pocahontas: A true tradition of the Nez Perz War, “ by Glenn N.

Ranck. Sunday Oregonian, August 5, 1906, p. 44• Zanjani, Sally. Sarah Winnemucca (Lincoln) University of Nebraska Press, 2001• Plus photos and newspapers from the Nevada State Museum, Carson City and the Nevada

State Library and Archives as stated in text.

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Acknowledgements

• I wish to thank the assistance of:• Mona Reno, Susan Searcy and Holly Van Valkenburgh of the

Nevada State Library and Archives, Carson City.• Robert Nylen, Sue Ann Monteleone and Deborah Stevenson

of Nevada State Museum, Carson City.• Dorothy Ely and Sherry Mendez, relatives of Sarah

Winnemucca.• Sally Zanjani and Gwen Clancy.• Yvonne Kelly for layout.

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