Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (1841–1891)

The first autobiography written and published by a Native American woman, Sara Winnemucca Hopkins' Life Among the Piutes was originally released in 1883, and was edited by Mrs. Horace Mann. It follows Hopkins' story from her early childhood in northern Nevada (the author estimated that she was born "somewhere near 1844"), through her unusual education with white friends, her marriage to a U.S. Army officer and life on the Malheur Reservation, her work as a translator for the Army during the Bannock War, and concludes with her description of the "Yakima Incident," in which the Piutes (Paiutes) were forcibly marched from Nevada to Yakima, Washington.

Hopkins was apparently a well-known speaker, who gave more than four hundred speeches in support of Piute rights, in both the United States and Europe. Her activism is credited with drawing enough public attention to the injustices perpetrated against the Paiute people, that when they began escaping from Yakima in order to return to their homelands in Nevada, they were largely left alone. In the last years of her life, Hopkins also returned to Nevada, where she founded a number of schools for Native Americans.

Required reading in one of my classes in college, I had never heard of this work - or its author - before, and I was struck by the extraordinary nature of Hopkins' life journey. Born before white settlers had reached Nevada, Hopkins (whose Paiute name was "Thocmentony," meaning "Shell Flower") wasn't just a woman of two worlds in a cultural sense - she literally died in a different world than the one into which she was born.

I understand that Hopkins is considered controversial by some, and has been criticized both for her assimilationist ideas and for her assistance to the U.S. Army during the Bannock War. For my part, when I read these narratives of people caught up in times of extraordinary and unprecedented change, I am always amazed at what they ARE able to accomplish, and I frequently find myself wondering what I would have made of similar circumstances. In the end, I believe that Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins did the best with what she had, and however much we may disagree with some of her decisions, it cannot be denied that she never forgot her people, or ceased to fight for them. For that, and for her unique role in American history, she deserves to be remembered.… (más)