Sarah Winnemucca

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (Born Thocmentony ( Northern Paiute language: "Shell Flower") ca. 1844 – October 16, 1891) was a Northern Paiute author, activist and educator.

Winnemucca was born near Humboldt Lake, Nevada, into an influential Paiute family who were leading their community in pursuing friendly relations with the arriving groups of Anglo-American settlers. She was sent to study in a Catholic school in Santa Clara, California. When the Paiute War erupted between the Pyramid Lake Paiute and the settlers, including some who were friends of the Winnemucca family, Sarah and some of her family traveled to San Francisco and Virginia City to escape the fighting. They made a living performing on stage as "A Paiute Royal Family". In 1865 while the Winnemucca family was away, their band was attacked by the US cavalry, who killed 29 Paiutes, including Sarah's mother and several members of her extended family.

Subsequently, Winnemucca became an advocate for the rights of Native Americans, traveling across the US to tell Anglo-Americans about the plight of her people. When the Paiute were interned in a concentration camp at Yakima, Washington after the Bannock War, she traveled to Washington, DC to lobby Congress and the executive branch for their release. She also served US forces as a messenger, interpreter and guide, and as a teacher for imprisoned Native Americans.

Winnemucca published Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), a book that is both a memoir and history of her people during their first forty years of contact with European Americans. It is considered the "first known autobiography written by a Native American woman." Anthropologist Omer Stewart described it as "one of the first and one of the most enduring ethnohistorical books written by an American Indian," frequently cited by scholars. Following the publication of the book, Winnemucca toured the US East, giving lectures about her people in New England, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. She returned to the West, founding a private school for Native American children in Lovelock, Nevada.

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