Sarah Winnemucca's Practical Solution of the Indian Problem / A Letter to Dr. Lyman Abbot of the "Christian Union"

by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

CAMBRIDGE:
JOHN WILSON AND SON.
University Press.
1886.

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SARAH WINNEMUCCA’S

PRACTICAL SOLUTION OF THE INDIAN PROBLEM.

To Dr. Lyman Abbot, Editor of the Christian Union:—

Because you so cordially announced Sarah Winnemucca’s “New Departure,” a year or more ago, as the Christian Union’s solution of the Indian problem, I send you this Report that I am now desirous to make to the public, unofficial and official, of her progress. The distinguishing characteristic of this New Departure is that, instead of being, as usual, a passive reception of civilizing influences proffered by white men who look down upon the Indian as a spiritual, moral, and intellectual inferior, it is a spontaneous movement, made by the Indian himself, from himself, in full consciousness of free agency, for the education that is to civilize him.