Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins

  We were now going to have a camp-meeting, and some visitors were coming from the East. Bishop Haven and his son and daughter were coming. The agent told me to be sure and keep my people away, as they were very poorly dressed. I did not do as I was told. My poor people were almost as naked as they were born into the world; for the seventeen wagons of supplies were not issued to them.

  When the time came, I came with all my people, and camped near the agent’s house, and during the meeting I made them all come and sit down on the benches that Father Wilbur made for his civilized and Christian Indians. I wanted all to see how well we were treated by Christian people.

  Day after day my people were begging me to go east and talk for them. I told them I had no money to go with just then; but I would as soon as I got some, for I had a little money coming to me from the military government.

  The military authority is the only authority that ever paid me well for my interpreting. Their pay to interpreters is from sixty-five dollars to seventy-five dollars, and the lowest is sixty dollars per month. For this pay one could live. All the agents pay to interpreters is from thirty dollars to forty dollars. One has to live out of this money, and there is nothing left.

  I always had to pay sixty dollars a month for my board (or fifteen dollars a week) when I was working for an agent. When I was working for the government they gave me my rations, the same as they did to the soldiers. My last appointment was given me at Washington in 1879. It was to be very small pay. I wrote to the Secretary of the Interior (Mr. Schurz), telling him I could not pay my board with that; but he never answered my letter, and so it stands that way to this day, and I never got a cent of it. But their pet, Reinhard, without an Indian on the reservation, could be paid three or four years. I have worked all the time among my people, and never been paid for my work. At last my military money came. I told Father Wilbur I wanted to go back to see my people. At first he said I could not go; he stood a minute, and then said,—

  “Well, Sarah, I can’t keep you if you want to go. Who is to talk for your people?”

  I said, “Brother Lee can talk well enough.”

  Then he said, “You can go after the camp-meeting is over.”

  Now commenced our meetings every day. I went and got all the little children and came with them myself, and sat down, and then went into the pulpit and interpreted the sermon to my people. Right here, my dear reader, you will see how much Father Wilbur’s Indians are civilized and Christianized. He had to have interpreters. If they were so much civilized, why did he have interpreters to talk to them? In eighteen years could he not have taught them some English? I was there twelve months, and I never heard an Indian man or woman speak the English language except the three interpreters and some half-breeds. Could he not have had the young people taught in all that time? A great many white people came to see the Indians. Of course one who did not know them might think they were educated when they heard them sing English songs, but I assure you they did not know what they sang any more than I know about logarithms. So I went away in November, and stopped at Vancouver, Washington Territory, to see General O. O. Howard. I told him all that Father Wilbur was doing to my people, and that I should try to go to Washington. Then he gave me a letter to some of his friends in Washington. I went straight from Vancouver to San Francisco. My brother Natchez and others met me there and we staid and talked about the agents, and none of them came forward to say, “Sarah is telling lies.” If they ever do I shall say more. I was lecturing in San Francisco when Reinhard tried so hard to get my brother Natchez to send some of our people to the Malheur Agency. Yes, he offered much money for each one he would bring to the reservation, but my brother told him he did not want his people to starve, and he was never going to tell them to go there. When Reinhard could get no Indian to go there he got the very man whose life my brother saved during the Bannock war. Because my brother had saved his life he thought he had nothing to do but go and get all my people to go to the Malheur Reservation. He told them that Mr. Reinhard had everything for them on the agency.

  My people told him to ask Reinhard why he did not give these good things to them before, then Oytes would not have gone with the Bannocks. This was just before I lectured in San Francisco. I was lecturing one evening, and this very man came to me and said, “Sarah, I would like to have you help me get some of your people to go with me to the Malheur Agency. I will pay you well for it. Here are thirty dollars.” He handed it to me. I thought to myself, “The white people are better than I am. They make money anyway and every way they can. Why not I? I have not any. I will take it.” So I did, for which I have been sorry ever since,—many times.

  Well, while I was lecturing in San Francisco, a great deal was said about it through the Western country. The papers said I was coming East to lecture. I was getting ready to come, and was at Lovelocks, Nevada, with brother Natchez.1 There came a telegram to me there from a man named Hayworth, saying, “Sarah, the President wants you and your father and brother Natchez and any other chiefs, four in number, to go to Washington with me. I am sent to go with you.” I answered, “Come here, we wish to see you.” In two days he came, and we told him everything about the doings of the agent. Not only we told him, but the white people told him also. We asked him to go to Camp McDermitt and to the Pyramid Lake Reservation and down the Humboldt River, that he might see for himself, and then he could help us tell the Big Father in Washington.

  He did so, and when we were ready we started for Washington with him. It took us one week to get to Washington. We stopped at the Fremont House. As soon as we got into the house a doctor was sent to vaccinate us, for fear we would take small-pox. We were told not to go out anywhere without the man who brought us. The next day, at about ten o’clock, we were taken to the office of the Secretary of the Interior. As soon as we entered, the man there looked at me and said,—

  “So you are on the lecturing tour, are you?” I said, “Yes, sir.”

  “So you think you can make a great deal of money by it, do you?”

  “No, sir; I do not wish to lecture for that.”

  “What, then?”

  “I have come to plead for my poor people, who are dying off with broken hearts, because they are separated from their children and husbands and wives and sons.”

  “But they are bad people; they have killed and scalped many innocent people.”

  “Not so; my people who are over there at Yakima did not do so any more than you have scalped people. There are only a few who went with the Bannocks who did wrong. I have given up those who were bad; the soldiers have them prisoners at Vancouver Barracks, Washington Territory. I have not come to plead for the bad ones. I have done my work faithfully. I told the officers if they would surrender I would give up all the bad ones, which I did, and I ask you only to return to their home all that have helped the white people. Yes, sir; the very man who killed Buffalo Horn was sent to the Yakima Reservation.” 1

  1 See Appendices A and B.

  The tears were running down my face while I was talking, and the heartless man began to laugh at me. He then said,—

  “I don’t think we can do anything about it.”

  Just at this moment Mr. Hayworth came in, and said Secretary Schurz was ready to see us. “Sarah,” he said to me, “you must not lecture here.”

  Secretary Schurz received us kindly, not like the man we had just left. Secretary Schurz said,—

  “I want you to tell me from the first beginning of the Bannock war,” which we did.

  Then he told Mr. Hayworth to take us everywhere to see everything; to have a carriage and take us round; and when we left him he said,—

  “Come again tomorrow, at the same hour.”

  We had a great many callers who wanted to see us, but the man Hayworth was with us every minute, for fear I would say something. We were taken somewhere every day, only to come in and get our meals. Reporters would come and say, “We want you to tell us where you are going to lecture, that we can put it in
to our papers.” But Hayworth would not let us talk to them. The next day we were again taken to Secretary Schurz. My brother talked this time, and I interpreted for him. My brother said,—

  “You, Great Father of the Mighty Nation, my people have all heard of you. We think you are the mightiest Father that lives, and to hear your own people talk, there is nothing you can’t do if you wish to; and, therefore, we one and all, pray of you to give us back what is of no value to you or your people. Oh, good Father, it is not your gold, nor your silver, horses, cattle, lands, mountains we ask for. We beg of you to give us back our people. who are dying off like so many cattle, or beasts, at the Yakima Reservation. Oh, good Father, have you wife or child? Do you love them? If you love them, think how you would feel if they were taken away from you, where you could not go to see them, nor they come to you. For what are they to be kept there? When the Bannocks came to our people with their guns, my father and I said to them everything that we could, telling them not to fight. We had a talk three days, and only one man got up and said he would go with them. That was Oytes, with about twenty-five or thirty men. Oytes is a Harney Lake Piute. We Piutes never had much of anything. The Bannocks took everything we had from us. They were going to kill me, with three white men, who were living nearby. I feared I could not get away, but thanks to Him who lives above us, I did get away with the three white men. They followed us about twenty miles as fast as their horses could run. My horse fell down and died. I cried out to Jack Scott, and he let me jump up behind him, but he left me and rode on. I ran a little way till I came to a creek, up which I ran, and in that manner I got away. So you see, good Father, we have always been good friends to your people. If you will return our people whom you sent away to Yakima Reservation, let them come to the Malheur Reservation, and make the bad ones stay where they are. In time I and my people will go there too, to make us homes; and, also, send away Mr. Reinhard, whom we hate.”

  This is what my brother said to Secretary Schurz, and I am surprised to see that in their own Report1 they say, “In the winter of 1878-9 a self-constituted delegation, consisting of the Chief Winnemucca and others of his band visited this city, and while here made an agreement, etc., to remove to Malheur, and receive allotments of one hundred and sixty acres to each head of a family, and each adult male; they were to cultivate the lands so allotted, and as soon as the law would enable it, patents therefor in fee-simple were to be issued to each allottee,” etc.

  1Ex. Doc. No. 121, Message of the President of the United States.

  I say we did not come on of ourselves; we were sent for, and neither my father or brother made any agreement to go to Malheur until those who belonged there could come back from Yakima, and till Reinhard should be sent away.

  I said one day I was going to lecture, as the people wanted me to, and try to get a little money to buy something for my father. Mr. Hayworth told what I said, and we were all sent for to go to the office of the Interior. We went in and sat down. Secretary Schurz said to me,—

  “Sarah, so you are bound to lecture.”

  I said, “People want me to.”

  “I don’t think it will be right for you to lecture here after the government has sent for you, and your father and brother, and paid your way here. The government is going to do right by your people now. Don’t lecture now; go home and get your people on the reservation—get them located properly; and then, if you want to come back, write to us, and tell us you want to come back and lecture, and we will pay your way here and back again. He told me they would grant all I asked of them for my people, which they did; yes, in their minds, I mean in writing, promises which, like the wind, were heard no more. They asked where I was going to stop after I got home. “We want to know, so that we can send you some canvas for tents for your people. You can issue it to them. Can you not?”

  I said “Yes, if it comes.”

  “We will send enough to make your people one hundred tents. You can issue it, and give the names of each head of the families, and send them back here.”

  I said, “I shall be at Lovelock’s in Nevada.” “We will send it as soon as you get home.”

  My poor father and brother said, “All right.”

  The secretary then told Mr. Hayworth to take us to the store and get father a suit of clothes, which father got; but brother and I did not get a pin’s worth from any one. We never did get anything from the government, or government officials.

  Poor father! he gave his clothes away after he got home, saying, “This is all I got from the Big Father in Washington. I am the only one who got anything; I don’t care for them. If they had been given me by the good soldier-fathers I would keep them.”

  On Saturday we were taken to the White House to see the President. We were shown all over the place before we saw him. A great many ladies were there to see us. At last he walked in and shook hands with us, then he said,—

  “Did you get all you want for your people?”

  I said, “Yes, sir, as far as I know.”

  “That is well,” he said, and went out again. That is all we saw of him. That was President Hayes.

  We went back to the hotel. In the afternoon Mr. Meacham came with a carriage to take us to the Soldiers’ Home, but we did not go. My father and brother were feeling badly because I told them I was going to New York to lecture, and I would come home by-and-by. I only did this to make the man who was with us angry, because he was forever listening to what I was saying. The Soldiers’ Home is the only place we did not see while we were in Washington.

  Sunday evening we were to start for home. Mr. Meacham said to me the last minute,—

  “Sarah, stop and give a lecture before you go. They can’t stop you. This is a free country. If you stop we will see you through.”

  Oh, if he had lived I know I would have a good friend to help in my work, not like the one who has the charge of his work now. That is Dr. Bland.

  “Well, if the government pets are to be the ones to condemn me, I have no fear whatever. I am not going into their private life, because I am not to condemn any one. I am only telling what the agents are doing. I think it is better for the government to keep the money than to give it to agents.”

  We were now ready to start, and the man who brought us to Washington was going with us. I said to him,—

  “I am not going as I came here.”

  “All right; you shall have a sleeping-car.”

  We had been on the road two days when a lady joined us. She was going to Duck Valley Agency to her husband, who was an agent there. She had a Bible with her. Ah! ah! What do you think the Bible was? Why it was a pack of cards. She would sit every day and play cards with men, and every evening, too. She was an Indian agent’s wife.

  Mr. Hayworth went as far as Omaha with us. He came to me there and said, “Sarah, I am going back.”

  I ran to the car where my father and brother were to tell them. He came in and bade them good-bye, and gave brother three dollars to provide us all with eating on our way,—more than a thousand miles.

  This is a copy of the order Secretary Schurz gave me. I have the original in my possession now.

  Department of the Interior,

  Washington, D.C., July 20, 1880.

  The Pi-Utes, heretofore entitled to live on the Malheur Reservation, their primeval home, are to have lands allotted to them in severalty, at the rate of one hundred and sixty acres to each head of a family, and each adult male. Such lands they are to cultivate for their own benefit. The allotment will be made under instructions of their agent. As soon as enabled by law to do so, this department is to give to the Indians patents for each tract of land conveying to each occupant the fee-simple in the lot he occupies.

  Those of the Pi-Utes, who in consequence of the Bannock war, went to the Yakima Reservation, and whoever may desire to rejoin their relatives, are at liberty to do so, without expense to the government for transportation. Those who desire to stay upon the Yakima Reservation and become permanently settled the
re will not be disturbed.

  None of the Pi-Utes now living among the whites, and earning wages by their own work will be compelled to go to the Malheur Reservation. They are at perfect liberty to continue working for wages for their own benefit, as they are now doing.

  It is well understood that those who settle on the Malheur Reservation will not be supported by the government in idleness. They will be aided in starting their farms and promoting their civilization, but the support given them by the government will, according to law, depend upon their intelligence and efficiency in working for themselves.

  C. Schurz,

  Secretary of the Interior.

  When we got home we told our people to go to Lovelocks, and be ready to receive some tents that were to be sent there for them. They came from far and near to hear of the wonderful father we had seen, how he looked and all about him. While we were waiting we almost starved. I wrote to the Secretary of the Interior for God’s sake to send us something to eat. He answered my letter telling me to take my people to the Malheur Agency. Just think of my taking my people, who were already starving, to go three hundred miles through snow waist-deep. I told my people what the letter said. They all laughed and said,