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# 2019-02-22 - Life Among The Piutes by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins | |
History is generally written by victors. I am grateful for this | |
exceptional book. It is remarkable how relevant the content remains | |
to this time. I felt heartbroken while reading this story and have | |
difficulty imagining going through those experiences and maintainin | |
my survival let alone my integrity. The humanist rhetoric also | |
appealed to me. Sarah Winnemucca advocated treating everyone as full | |
human beings regardless of race, sex, etc. Telling that she and her | |
people received the worst treatment from professed Christians and | |
were treated best by non-Christians and soldiers. At least one of | |
those non-Christians lost his office because of his religious status. | |
# Chapter 1 | |
We travelled with them at that time two days, and the third day we | |
all camped together where some white people were living in large | |
white houses. ... There was some kind of a fight,--that is, the | |
captain of the train was whipping negroes who were driving his team. | |
That made my poor grandfather feel very badly. He went to the | |
captain, and told him he would not travel with him. He came back and | |
said to his people that he would not travel with his white brothers | |
any farther. | |
Now, my dear reader, there is no word so endearing as the word | |
father, and that is why we call all good people father or mother; no | |
matter who it is,--negro, white man, or Indian, and the same with the | |
women. | |
> Surely you all know that they are human. Their lives are just as | |
> dear to them as ours to us. | |
# Chapter 2 | |
> We have a republic as well as you. The council-tent is our | |
> Congress, and anybody can speak who has anything to say, women and | |
> all. ... If women could go to into your Congress I think justice | |
> would soon be done to the Indians. | |
> At council, one is always appointed to repeat at the time | |
> everything that is said on both sides, so that there may be no | |
> misunderstanding , and one person at least is present from every | |
> lodge, and after it is over, he goes and repeats what is decided | |
> upon at the door of the lodge, so all may be understood. | |
> it was only here that people did wrong and were in the hell that | |
> it made, and that those that were in the Spirit-land saw us here | |
> and were sorry for us. But we should go to them when we died, | |
> where there was never any wrong-doing, and so no hell. That is our | |
> religion. | |
# Chapter 5 | |
These reports were only made by those white settlers so that they | |
could sell their grain, which they could not get rid of in any other | |
way. The only way the cattle-men and farmers get to make money is to | |
start an Indian war, so that the troops may come and buy their beef, | |
cattle, horses, and grain. The settlers get fat by it. | |
> Because white people are bad that is no reason why the soldiers | |
> should be bad too. | |
(Brother and my people always say "the white people," just as if the | |
soldiers were not white, too.) | |
Now, dear readers, this is the way all the Indian agents get rich. | |
The first thing they do is start a store; the next thing is to take | |
in cattle men, and the cattle men pay the agent one dollar a head. | |
# Chapter 7 | |
> This was the hardest work i ever did for the government in all my | |
> life, -- the whole round trip, from 10 o'clock June 13th up to June | |
> 15th, arriving back at 5:30 P.M., having been in the saddle night | |
> and day; distance, about two hundred and twenty-three miles. Yes, | |
> i went for the government when the officers could not get an Indian | |
> man or a white man to go for love or money. I, only an Indian | |
> woman, went and saved my father and his people. | |
> That is the way with you citizens. You call on the soldiers for | |
> protection and you want to make thousands of dollars out of it. I | |
> know if my people had a herd of a thousand horses they would let | |
> you have them all for nothing." The General looked at me so funny, | |
> and said, "Yes, Sarah, your people have good hearts, better ones | |
> than these white dogs have. | |
This battle lasted from 8 A.M., to 12:30 P.M. Where do you think the | |
citizen volunteer scouts were during the fight? The citizens, who | |
are always for exterminating my people (with their mouths only), had | |
all fallen to the rear, picking up horses and other things which were | |
left on the battle-field, and after the battle was over they rode up | |
to where we were and asked where were the Indians. Gen. Howard | |
said,-- "Go look for them." | |
> ... Oh! how thankful i feel that it is my own child who has saved | |
> so many lives, not only mine, but a great many, both whites and her | |
> own people. Now hereafter we will look on her as our chieftan, for | |
> none of us are worthy of being chief but her, and all I can say to | |
> you is to send her to the wars and you stay and do women's work, | |
> and talk as women do. | |
# Chapter 8 | |
Oh for shame! You who are educated by a Christian government in the | |
art of war; the practice of whose profession makes you natural | |
enemies of the savages, so called by you. Yes, you, who call | |
yourselves the great civilization; you who have knelt upon Plymouth | |
Rock, covenanting with God to make this land the home of the free and | |
the brave. Ah, then you rise from your bended knees and seizing the | |
welcoming hands of those who are the owners of this land, which you | |
are not, your carbines rise upon the bleak shore, and your so-called | |
civilization sweeps inland from the ocean wave; but, oh, my God! | |
leaving its pathway marked by crimson lines of blood, and strewed by | |
the bones of two races, the inheritor and the invader; and I am | |
crying out to you for justice--yes, pleading for the far-off plains | |
of the West, for the dusky mourner, whose tears of love are pleading | |
for her husband, or their children, who are sent far away from them. | |
Your Christian ministers hold my people against their will; not | |
because he loves them,--no far from it,--but because it puts money in | |
his pockets. | |
... my uncle, Captain John, rose and spoke, saying, "My dear people, | |
I have lived many years with white people. Yes, it is over thirty | |
years, and I know a great many of them. I have never once known one | |
of them to do what they promised. I think they mean it just at the | |
time, but I tell you they are very forgetful. It seems to me, | |
sometimes, that their memory is not good, and since I have understood | |
them, if they say they will do so and so for me, I would say to them, | |
now or never, and if they don't, why it is because they never meant | |
to do, but only to say so." | |
I thought within myself, "If such an outrageous thing is to happen to | |
me, it will not be done by one man or two, while there are two women | |
with knives, for I know what an Indian woman can do. She can never | |
be outraged by one man; but she may by two." It is something an | |
Indian woman dare not say till she has been overcome by one man, for | |
there is no man living that can do anything to a woman if she does | |
not wish him to. My dear reader, I have not lived in this world for | |
over thirty or forty years for nothing, and I know what I am talking | |
about. | |
Ah, there is one thing you cannot say of the Indian. You call him | |
savage, and everything that is bad but one; but, thanks be to God, I | |
am proud to say that my people have never outraged your women, or | |
have even insulted them by looks or words. Can you say the same of | |
the negroes or the whites? They do commit some most horrible | |
outrages on your women, but you do not drive them round like dogs. | |
Oh, my dear readers, talk for us, and if the white people will treat | |
us like human beings, we will behave like a people; but if we are | |
treated by white savages as if we are savages, we are relentless and | |
desperate; yet no more so than any other badly treated people. | |
My people are ignorant of worldly knowledge, but they know what love | |
means and what truth means. They have seen their dear ones perish | |
around them because their white brothers have given neither love nor | |
truth. Are not love and truth better than learning? My people have | |
no learning. They do not know anything about the history of the | |
world, but they can see the Spirit-Father in everything. The | |
beautiful world talks to them of their Spirit-Father. | |
author: Hopkins, Sarah Winnemucca, 1844-1891 | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Sarah_Winnemucca | |
LOC: E99.P2 H7 | |
source: http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/life_among_the_piutes/ | |
tags: biography,ebook,history,native-american | |
title: Life Among The Piutes | |
# Tags | |
biography | |
ebook | |
history | |
native-american |