Sarah Winnemucca’s idea is an inheritance from that remarkable chief of the Piutes, Captain Truckee, who in 1848, for the first time, discovered that there were white men in the world! In the first chapter of her “Life among the Piutes”[1] Sarah tells of his meeting with General (then Captain) Fremont in the mountains of Nevada, who accepted his proffered guidance on the unaccustomed way, and with whom he and a dozen of his braves went down to California, where the wonders of civilization burst upon him, firing his imagination, before his self-respect had been wounded and his heart discouraged, as is the usual Indian experience, with an unquenchable ardor to share these glories.
He and his braves were able to do Fremont service in the affair of Mariposa and the immediately following conquest of California, for which they were decorated, and so respectfully and kindly treated by Fremont that the old chief’s heart was completely won; and he clung to his “white brothers,” as he pathetically called them, to the end of his life, although immediately on his return to Nevada he was told of those terrible emigrations that had rushed across it “like a roaring lion,” as Sarah phrases it, striking terror into the souls of the women and even of the brave men, who could not understand the wanton and unprovoked cruelty with which these white savages shot all Indians down as soon as they were seen, as if they were wild beasts. But he persisted in calling them exceptions to the end of his life.
The artless autobiography of the first chapters of Sarah’s book gives the key to her career as reconciling mediator for the mutual understanding of the two races. She was educated for it by her grandfather. That she has actually become this, is shown by an article from the “Daily Alta California,” of July 24, which I have just received; and I beg that you will insert every word of it here:—
“We have referred already to the school for Indian children established in Nevada by the Piute woman, Princess Sarah Winnemucca. Her efforts have seemed to us to deserve encouragement. Travellers through Nevada who have seen the squalid crowds of Indian children at the stations taking eagerly scraps of food offered them at the car windows, may think that the regeneration of those people is impossible. To change this opinion it is only necessary to consider the case of Sarah Winnemucca, who, when her childhood was long past, first had opportunities for education, and improved them so well that her attainments command the respect of all white people who know her. What education has done for her it may do for a majority of the children of that tribe in which she was born a Princess, a Chief’s daughter. She is very active for her people, and loses no opportunity to urge them forward in the path to civilization. Recently she sent a message to those Indians living in Inyo County, in this State, urging them to send their children to school. A copy of this letter was sent to the School Trustees of Inyo, and we invite the attention of our readers to it. She says:—
“‘Brothers and Sisters: Hearing that you are about to start a school to educate your children, I want to say a word about it. You all know me; many of you are my aunts or cousins. We are of one race,—your blood is my blood,—so I speak to you for your good. I can speak five tongues,—three Indian tongues, English, and Spanish. I can read and write, and am a school teacher. Now, I do not say this to boast, but simply to show you what can be done. When I was a little girl there were no Indian schools; I learned under great difficulty. Your children can learn much more than I know, and much easier; and it is your duty to see that they go to school. There is no excuse for ignorance. Schools are being built here and there, and you can have as many as you need; all they ask you to do is to send your children. You are not asked to give money or horses,—only to send your children to school. The teacher will do the rest. He or she will fit your little ones for the battle of life, so that they can attend to their own affairs instead of having to call in a white man. A few years ago you owned this great country; to-day the white man owns it all, and you own nothing. Do you know what did it? Education. You see the miles and miles of railroad, the locomotive, the Mint in Carson, where they make money. Education has done it all. Now, what it has done for one man it will do for another. You have brains same as the Whites, your children have brains, and it will be your fault if they grow up as you have. I entreat you to take hold of this school, and give your support by sending your children, old and young, to it; and when they grow up to manhood and womanhood they will bless you.’
“It is hard to find in all the literature of pedagogics a stronger appeal to a primitive or any other people to avail themselves of the benefits of education. Exceptionally good in its language and logical in its presentation of reasons, it constitutes not only advice to her own tribe, but it is the finest of all the genuine proofs of the capacity of the Indian intellect. We cannot help feeling that such a woman deserves help, and that her work should command support far beyond the lines of her own State. If each of the tribes could furnish only one such woman, of equal culture, sincerity, and energy, their joint influence upon the future of our Indians would be greater than all the armies that can be put in the field. The Federal Government should consider her and her work. She has defended her people against the rascally treatment of its agents, but with a rare discretion has never, therefore, inflamed them against the whites. She has constantly pointed to civilization as desirable above all things, and has taught them that return to their old ways is forever impossible.
“We believe that the Indian Department should found an Indian school in Nevada and put Sarah at the head of it. The cost would be small compared with the value of the experiment, and surely it would command the sympathy of all right-minded people. She has ample culture, and she knows the Indian character thoroughly, while it is easy to believe that her example will be of great value in encouraging her pupils. When Indians have a white teacher there must naturally seem a great gulf between them. The pupils must often despair of ever approximating the learning which they believe came as naturally to the white man as the color of his skin. But when an Indian teacher like Sarah can say to them, ‘I learned this, I am an Indian, and you are as good as I am; what I learned is as possible and as easy to you,’ there must be in it a superior encouragement. We do not know whether there is on this coast any organization that is charged with the interests of these humble people. We believe Mrs. John Bidwell has done something in her vicinity toward advancing them, and she may be known to the East for her good work. If there be an organization it should bring this matter to the attention of the Government, to the end that this Indian woman may have facilities equal to her energy and to her noble spirit. It won’t hurt the whites any to give their gentle and philanthropic sentiments free play in a matter that is full of interest and of genuine Christianity.”
Without stopping to tell of the circumstances of her life, inward and outward, that have brought her to the point of her present undertaking,—though to do so would give new meaning and interest to it,—I hasten to say that a year and a half ago, when it seemed as if the conditions she craved were to be despaired of, Senator Leland Stanford, who came into relation with the Piutes in 1863 and personally knew their exceptional character, spontaneously deeded to Sarah’s brother, Chief Natches, one hundred and sixty acres of land near Lovelocks; and a few of the friends of Sarah at the East, to whom she had fully communicated her idea and what she wished to do, advanced from their own private resources barely sufficient capital to enable Natches to get his land surveyed and in part fenced and planted, and Sarah to open her school for his children, and those of some other Piutes wandering in the neighborhood seeking chance jobs of work. She began instructing them in the English language, which she had grown up speaking in her equal intercourse with both races.
Our idea in giving this aid, without which the land would have been no boon, was to give Sarah the chance to begin her experiment independent of the agency at Pyramid Lake, which, like the large majority of Indian agencies, prevents civilization by insulting and repressing that creative self-respect and conscious freedom to act, from which alone any vital human improvement can spring. We wanted that there should be no pretext of favors received, for the agent, who naturally enough is her personal enemy, to interfere or meddle while she, with a few of her people, began a self-supporting, self-directed life on the ground of their inherited domestic moralities, which, in the case of the Piutes at least, are very pure, as she had demonstrated to us in her lectures and by her own remarkable personality, thus making a healthy wild stock of natural religion on which to graft a Christian civilization worthy of the name, which might rebuke and correct that which certainly disgraces it now on our frontiers. But all that we did for her still left her with broken health and numberless hardships to contend with, which would have crushed any less heroic spirit.
She began her school in a brush arbor, teaching gospel hymns and songs of labor, that she interpreted in Piute; and as soon as the children could speak and understand some English she began to teach them to read and write it, also to draw and even to cipher, sending us through the post-office specimens of their work and of their sewing. And in February we were surprised with the following letter, which came soon after one from herself, in which she described the unexpected visit, and said that Captain Cook made a speech to the children (which she interpreted to them in Piute), telling them that when he was a boy he had not such advantages of education as they were enjoying. This letter I immediately sent to the editor of the “Boston Transcript,” who published it with his own indorsement as follows:—
A PRINCESS’S SCHOOL.
Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody has had her heart cheered—not that it has ever faltered in that generous trust of which only noble natures are capable—with the following unexpected testimony to the faithfulness of the Piute “Princess” Winnemucca to the cause of uplifting her people. Other friends of the Indian have turned against her, but Miss Peabody has persevered in supporting this most remarkable woman through every kind of cruel and scandalous assault upon her character by those interested in having the poor, dispossessed remnants of the peaceful Piutes left naked to their enemies. This is surely trustworthy testimony:—