Sarah Winnemucca and Zitkala Sa: Negotiating Physical and Cultural Survival in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
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2016-05
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Hood College History
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Hood College Departmental Honors
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Abstract
The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw extreme changes for many Native peoples in North America. This paper will focus on two women’s responses to this upheaval: Sarah Winnemucca (Numa) and Zitkala Sa (Yankton Dakota). To survive in a rapidly changing world, Sarah Winnemucca and Zitkala Sa used their positions as cultural mediators between Native peoples and Euro-Americans to reshape and redefine aspects of Native identity, and to alter Euro-American perceptions and treatment of Native peoples. Winnemucca experienced and reacted to Euro-American invasion of the Great Basin, the formation of reservations within this region, and the starvation and slaughter of her people. Zitkala Sa, born thirty-two years after Winnemucca, faced the effects of the reservation system, the implementation of Indian boarding schools, the continuous oppression of Native American peoples, and the corruption in the Indian Office. As cultural mediators, Winnemucca and Zitkala Sa held understandings of both Native and Euro-American cultures, so they had the ability to actively participate in dialogue between two different worlds. Their purpose was not to completely merge Native and Euro-American worlds, but to reduce the distance between the two. By reshaping and redefining aspects of their Native identity, Winnemucca and Zitkala Sa attempted to carve out a space for Native cultures within Euro-American society, without completely assimilating to Euro-American culture. Concurrently, shifting Euro-American perceptions and treatments of Native peoples enabled the creation of this space without the elimination of a separate Native identity.