Tocmentony (Sarah Winnemucca)
A Woman of Many Names
By Mary Trotter Kion
Sarah Winnemucca was the first Indian woman
to write a book, but there was a long, hard road she had to
travel first. As a child of the Paviotso Paiutes of Northern
Nevada she was called Tocmentony which translates as Shell-Flower.
She was called Sarah, in her
adolescent years, by white people who could not
pronounce her Indian name. Winnemucca, the name of her Chieftain
father, was added as a last name. These young years for Sarah
Winnemucca, granddaughter of the famed Chief Truckee, were difficult
times for the Paiutes as the whites invaded their land where the
Oregon Trail crossed it. Then they began building towns where
the Paiutes gathered food and held their sacred ceremonies.
Sarah's grandfather was a friend to the whites
but he was wise enough to see that soon they would rule over all
the land. He wanted Sarah to be educated so she could live and
survive in this new world. Sarah adored her grandfather, and his
words swayed the young girl's opinion
towards the whites.
In 1850 Chief Truckee and some of his people,
including Sarah and her mother, moved to California. He hoped
that there Sarah would receive the education she would need. The
Paiutes found work at a ranch. Their wages seemed like a
fortune but the white men began
forcing their sexual desires upon the Paiute women.
Finally they returned home to find the whites had surrounded the
Paiutes, forcing them to move so they could find food. But
Truckee found an opportunity for Sarah to learn white ways
by sending her to work at a
stage stop where she learned to communicate in
English and Mexican. Then two Washoe men were killed for a crime
that two white men had committed and Sarah's brother brought her
home. When two Indian girls who were missing were found, badly
abused, at another station an uprising flared. Some men from another
tribe killed the two offenders, then burned the station. Soon
homes along the Carson River were attack in response to the many
depredations the Indians had suffered.
The uprising settled down, but Chief Truckee was
dying. Still wanting Sarah to be educated, he sent her and her
sister to the mission at San Jose in California. Sarah's stay
was a happy one until the wealthy mothers of San Francisco declared
the two Indian girls to be an offense
to their daughters. Though forced to leave, Sarah
couldn't forget what she'd learned and still wanted an education.
She believed it was the only way she could help her people, especially
since political officials were now trying to make the Paiutes
move to a reservation. Some
Paiutes wanted to fight for their rights and urged
Sarah's father to join them. Though it put him in danger, he held
to his peaceful beliefs.
Sarah was now a beautiful and educated young woman
who traveled from one reservation to another, trying to help the
Indians. When she was twenty-seven she received another new name
by marrying Lieutenant Bartlett. Unfortunately, Bartlett was a
drunk who soon
spent the money she'd saved. After their divorce
Sarah worked as an interpreter until President Grant forced all
Indians to live on eservations. Sarah went to the reservation
at Malheur, Nevada where the Indian agent was a good man who helped
the Indians. He was
soon replaced with one who closed the Indian's
school and reclaimed the land they were raising crops on to feed
themselves. After Sarah tried to reason with him and was banished
from his reservation, many of the Paiutes died of disease or starved
to death since their crops were taken from them.
To seek help for her people Sarah started for
Washington to speak to the "Great White Chief" but the
Bannock War stopped her. The Bannocks had taken her father and
some others so Sarah, in disguise, made it through the Bannock's
lines and rescued them. Afterwards, her father declared she was
now Queen Sarah of the Paiute, adding one
more name to the others. For the rest of the war
she helped the army. At its end the government rewarded her people
by declaring them prisoners of war. They were sent to the Yakima
Reservation in Washington Territory. On the way many babies
and old people died
in the frigid January weather. When they
reached their destination the Yakima agent, Father James Wilbur,
put them in sheds unprotected from the freezing weather.
To help her people Sarah began to give lectures
in San Francisco on the treatment her people were receiving. Her
words brought praise for her but the agent at the Malheur Reservation
told lies about her. After receiving an invitation from Washington
to speak for the Paiutes, she
arrived there unaware that the Malheur agent had
sent a letter on ahead, voicing even more lies about her.
After a long wait, under guard, the Secretary of the Interior,
Carl Schurz, made her many promises including the providing of
tents and food for her people. But they were empty promises that
produced nothing.
When her people asked to return to their home
in Nevada Father Wilbur wouldn't let them go. He didn't want to
lose the work he was getting out of them, but offered to hire
Sarah as an interpreter. When she refused he banned her from the
Yakima Reservation. Before she
left she informed him that she thought Hell must
be full of Christians like him.
Sarah again acquired a new name when she married
another white man, Lewis Hopkins. This time her husband was a
gambler, and again her money was soon gone. Things had not
changed for her people other than becoming worse. They were starving
and Sarah, with her
husband, ventured on a lecture tour in the east
where she was helped by Elizabeth Peabody and her sister Mary
Mann. Because of them, Sarah became the first Indian woman to
write a book, Life Among the Paiutes. Things were going right
until Sarah's husband took the
money that had been donated to help the Paiutes
and spent it. She returned home with only some barrels of old
clothes. Her husband now had tuberculosis so they moved to Pyramid
Lake Reservation.
Sarah's efforts were rewarded when she was given
one-hundred-and-sixty acres in Nevada to start a school, while
her brother farmed the land. Her white neighbors were resentful
that she owned this land and that the Indian children were receiving
the better education. They cut
off the water supply. The school closed, then
Sarah's husband died. Her faith in the white people gone, she
returned to her tribe to live as an Indian.
By 1890 Sarah's health was failing. She had contracted
tuberculosis. On October 17, 1891 Sarah Winnemucca died at the
age of forty-seven, but this brave woman with many names left
behind a legacy for her people in the book she wrote and her belief
in the necessity of an
education.
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Mary Trotter Kion prefers to spend her time reading,
researching, and
writing about historical person and events, except
for when she is
playing with her grandchildren and her numerous
pets.