Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims

by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins

  Some of the women cried out,—

  “That’s what we told them last night when they were abusing our mother. We knew she would not do such a thing.”

  Some of them came and laid their hands on my head, and cried, saying,—

  “Oh, mother, forgive us for thinking badly of you. Oh, tell us, can we hope we shall see our husbands, our children, our daughters?”

  I got up and held up the paper over my head, and said,—

  “My dear children, may the Great Father in the Spirit-land, will it so that you may see your husbands, and your children, and your daughters. I have said everything I could in your behalf, so did father and brother. I have suffered everything but death to come here with this paper. I don’t know whether it speaks truth or not. You can say what you like about me. You have a right to say I have sold you. It looks so. I have told you many things which are not my own words, but the words of the agents and the soldiers. I know I have told you more lies than I have hair on my head. I tell you, my dear children, I have never told you my own words; they were the words of the white people, not mine. Of course, you don’t know, and I don’t blame you for thinking as you do. You will never know until you go to the Spirit-land. This which I hold in my hand is our only hope. It came right from the Big Father you hear so much of. We will see what his words are if what the people say about him is truth. If it is truth we will see our people in fifty days. It is not my own making up; it came right from him, and I will read it just as it is, so that you can all judge for yourselves.”

  After I had read it through, they all forgot they were grown people. They jumped about and cried, “Oh, we shall be happy again.” The little girls said, “We shall sing, we shall play in our own play-ground.” Men and women were all like children running to me with outstretched hands, saying, “Mother, forgive us for thinking bad of you.”

  Leggins said, “Now, you have heard what our mother has told us, we will get ready to go at once, and all that want to can go with me, and all that want to can stay. Step aside, so I may know who are going with me, and then we can go and find our Father Wilbur, so he can go with us, or send for soldiers to go with us.”

  Every one cried, “Why ask us? We are all dying off here. Who wants to stay here? We will all go,—yes, we will all go, if we have to crawl on our hands and knees.”

  All but Oytes, he sat with his hands over his face, crying. Paddy says to Oytes, “Why do you hang your head? Have you turned into a woman? You were first on your horse when the Bannocks came. You got us all into trouble, and only for you we had been in our own country. You are the cause of all our suffering. Now it is no time to cry. I felt like crying when you got up and said, ‘Come, my men, get your arms, we will help the Bannocks,’ At that time there was only one who got up and said, ‘Men, what are you all thinking about? Don’t you all hear your Chief talking to you, telling you not to go with the Bannocks, or you will all be killed? He is telling you good things, and you dare to cry war?’”

  As Paddy talked he pointed and said, “That old woman sits there who said these things. She knew what our Chief Natchez was saying to us. We had ears to hear, and knew what was said was truth. If we had listened to what was said to us then we would not have lost so many of our friends, and now they have done more for us than we deserved, —yea, more than we would do for them. I am as bad as you have been. They went so far to talk in your behalf, and because our mother has come with good news from the Big Father, you have to cry. Stop your crying, and tell us what you are going to do.”

  Oytes got up and said, “Dear brother,” but broke down again and could not speak. He stood a little while. He looked up to me and said, “Mother, pity me. Give me your hand. Help me. I am just as Paddy says—‘ I am a woman;’ I shall be while I live,” and then he cried out to Leggins, “Oh, brother, ask me to go with you to our dear Mother Earth, where we can lie alongside our father’s bones. Just say, ‘Come,’ I will be only too glad to go with you.”

  I then said, “This paper says all that want to go can go. I say for one, Oytes, come, go with us, but all who want to can go.”

  Then Leggins said, “Oytes, I have no right to say to you, ‘You have done wrong and you can’t go to your own country.’ No, I am only too glad to hear you talk as you do. We will all go back and be happy once more in our native land.”

  Then they all said, “We will all go. Why leave one here?”

  Then the head men said to me and to brother Lee, “We will go and see Father Wilbur right off, and tell him to send for soldiers to go with us, to keep the white men from killing us.”

  So we all started up to see our good Father Wilbur. Our father did not want to talk to us. My people came every day to see him for four days. During the time there came some goods for my people. The storehouse was full of goods of all kinds. He came to me and said, “Sarah, I had some forty of your people working for me since you went away, some women, too. I want you to tell them to come and I will pay them right off. I have to pay them in clothing.”

  I went and told them. My people said, “Now is the time to talk to him,” but he did not want to talk to them. Some got blankets, some calico for their wives. Some said, “I worked two months. Some three months. We ought to get more pay.” These words were not listened to by Father Wilbur. Eighteen men got paid and six women, and the doors were shut. My people tried to talk to him. I went to him and said, “My people want to talk to you.” He did not answer me. I went back to them. They all began to laugh at me, saying, “Ah! ah! Your father talks every Sunday saying we must not get mad or do anything that is not right.” “Now, he is the first to get mad at me,” said Leggins. They all laughed again and went to their camps. The next morning the agent sent for me. I sent for Leggins and some of the head men, and went to his home. He gave me a chair to sit down in. Dr. Kirkendorff and the head farmer, Mr. Fairchild, were there. My sister ran off and told them I was sent for and they had better go quickly. Then he began on me by saying, “I am sorry you are putting the devil into your people’s heads; they were all doing so well while you were away, and I was so pleased with them. You are talking against me all the time, and if you don’t look out I will have you put in irons and in prison.” Here I jumped on my war-horse. I mean I said, “Mr. Wilbur, you forget that you are a Christian when you can talk so to me. You have not got the first part of a Christian principle about you, or you would leave everything and see that my poor, broken-hearted people get home. You know how they are treated by your Christian Indians. You are welcome to put me in prison. You are starving my people here, and you are selling the clothes which were sent to them, and it is my money in your pocket; that is why you want to keep us here, not because you love us. I say, Mr. Wilbur, everybody in Yakima City knows what you are doing, and hell is full of just such Christians as you are.”

  “Stop talking, or I will have you locked up.”

  “I don’t care how soon you have it done. My people are saying I have sold them to you, and get money from you to keep them here. I am abused by you and by my own people, too. You never were the man to give me anything for my work, and I have to pay for everything I have to eat. Mr. Wilbur, you will not get off as easily as you think you will. I will go to Yakima City and lecture. I will tell them all how you are selling my people the clothes which were sent here for them.”

  I had my say, and got up and went away. He tried to keep me, but I walked away. That is the last I saw of Father Wilbur. I almost wished he would put me in prison, for that would have made my people see that I had not sold them. He sent the doctor to talk to me, and to tell me if I wanted to go home he would send his own team down with me to the Dalles. I told him to tell Wilbur I was going to Yakima City first.

  “Oh, Sarah, you had better not. The Yakimas have been telling Father Wilbur lies about you, through Oytes.” I said, “I have had my say.” We all talked the thing over, and they said I had better go to the Dalles and send a telegram to the Big Father in Washington, and then come for them. My
brother Lee thought so too. Later the doctor came again and said, “Lee, Father Wilbur wants to see you.” He did not want to go. “I am afraid he will put me in irons, too.” “Don’t be afraid; go and see what he wants with you.” He again said to me, “Well, Sarah, do you want to go to the Dalles? I will take you down myself, if you will say you will go.” I did not talk to him, but got up and went away until brother came back. He came back laughing. At last he said, “Oh, sister, I am rich. I am going to have some land, and I am going to have a wagon, and I am going to have my own time to pay for it. It will only take one hundred and twenty-five years for me to pay for my wagon. He wants me to stay here, not to go away. Yes, I see myself staying here. Leggins, Oytes, Paddy, come and have supper with us.” Just as we sat down the doctor came and said, “Sarah, Mrs. Young is going down tomorrow.”

  “Doctor, I am not going till I get ready; not until then, and when I want to have you take me down I will let you know.”

  We had another talk, and then I promised my people that I would work for them while there was life in my body. I told them I would telegraph to the Big Father in Washington, as soon as I got to the Dalles. I then told Lee to go to the doctor and say I would go. He came over himself to see me. We got to Dalles the second day. I went to the telegraph office, and sent the telegram, as I said I would.

  The two army reports will go in this book, where my readers will see how many were against me. I then wrote to General Howard, telling him I was so poor I did not know what to do. I told him Father Wilbur never gave me a cent for the work I had done for him. I did not have money enough to go down to Vancouver, where General Howard was. Oh, thanks be to my Spirit-Father, General Howard sent for me. They appointed me interpreter and teacher at that place. There were fifty Indians, called the Sheep-Eaters, and some others. I taught their children how to read, and they learned very fast, because they knew what they were learning. During this time I received the five hundred dollars, which I dearly earned during the Bannock war, after working two years for it. I then paid Mr. Stevens what he gave me at Camp Harney. While we were doing so well, there came an order that these Sheep-Eaters and Weisers must go to Fort Hill Reservation. Lieutenant Mills and I took them there, and I left them there. I paid thirty-five dollars which they ought to have paid for me. I wrote to General Howard about it, and he told me how to get it. I did as he told me to; but as in other cases, I never heard from it. I wrote to my school-children afterwards. The head man, who called himself War Jack, got someone to write to me, saying my children had forgotten what they had learned, as they were not going to school any more. That is the last I heard from them, and my work at Vancouver for the military government may be my last work, as I am talking against the government officials; and I am assured I never shall get an appointment as interpreter. I do have a little hope if the army takes care of my people that they will give me a place, either as teacher or interpreter. I tell you, my dear readers, the agents don’t want anybody but their own brothers and sisters, or fathers and mothers, wives, cousins, or aunts. If they do have an interpreter, they get one that is so ignorant he does not know what is said. Yes, one that can’t read, one that is always ready to sign any kind of letter that suits his own purpose. My people have been signing papers for the last twenty-three years. They don’t know what they sign. The interpreter tells them it is for blankets, coats, pants, shoes, socks, woolen shirts, calicoes, unbleached muslin. So they put their names to it, while it is only a report of the issues he has already made. He knows well enough that if they were told it was the report of an issue they would not sign it. This kind of thing goes on, on all the reservations; and if any white man writes to Washington in our behalf, the agent goes to work with letters and gets his men, and his aunts and cousins to help him, and they get any kind of Indians to sign the letters, and they are sent on to Washington. Yes, General Crook tells the truth about the agents stealing from the Indians, and whoever tells this truth is abused by the agent. He calls him nobody, and the agent is believed, because he is a Christian. So it goes on year after year. Oh, when will it stop? I pray of you, I implore of you, I beseech of you, hear our pitiful cry to you, sweep away the agency system; give us homes to live in, for God’s sake and for humanity’s sake. I left my poor people in despair, I knew I had so many against me. While I was in Vancouver, Mr. Chapman, the interpreter, was sent over to Yakima to see if he could help my people. He met with the same success I had had. He came back and told me my people were really starving. He said he never saw people in the condition they were in. He said he went into their tents to see if they had anything hidden away. He did not find anything; but he said he did it because Father Wilbur told him the people had plenty to eat. Sometimes they went four or five days without having a thing to eat, nor had they any clothes. Poor man! the tears ran down his cheeks as he told me, and of course I cried.

  Just then Colonel Wilkinson came up and said,—

  “Why, Sarah, what are you crying about? You are only an Indian woman. Why, Indian women never cry.”

  Ah, my dear friends, he is another one who makes people believe he is working for Indians. He is at Forest Grove. He is another one that started a school for the Indians, something like Hampton School; but people will not send to him, because they have not confidence in him. He is the man that used to preach in the streets in Portland, Oregon. I tell you the world is full of such people. I see that all who say they are working for Indians are against me. I know their feeling pretty well. They know if the Indians are turned over to the army, they will lose their living. In another sense they ought to be glad to have Indians (I mean all my people, who are Indian nations) under the military care, for then if we kill white people, the soldiers can just kill us right there, and not have to go all over the country to find us! For shame! for shame! You dare to cry out Liberty, when you hold us in places against our will, driving us from place to place as if we were beasts. 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 so 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. Oh, dear friends, I am pleading for God and for humanity.

  I sent the following letter to the Honorable Secretary of the Interior:—

  “ Vancouver Barracks, March 28, 1881.

  “ Dear Sir,—I take this matter in hand in behalf of the Indians who are prisoners here at this place. There are fifty-three in all. Of this number thirteen are men, twenty-one women, eleven girls from three to fourteen years of age, and eight boys from three to sixteen. Twenty-three of the number belong to the Sheep-Eaters, thirteen belong to the Weisers’ tribe, and seven from Boise. These belong to Fort Hall. This is the second winter they have been here, and they have been provided for entirely by the military here. They receive government rations. But the only way they have to provide for the women is by what they make out of selling the savings of some of their rations, and from what castaway clothing I can collect from employees here. I am employed here as an interpreter, and have been teaching them to read. I commenced last July. I have twelve girls and six boys in school. When I commenced to teach them they knew nothing,—never had been to school. They are learning fast. They can all read pretty well, and are desirous to learn. What I want to ask is to have them stay here. They seem to be contented. Most of them would rather stay here than to go elsewhere, but in order to make them more contented and useful it would be well to help them. If they could have a place, or a bit of land given them to use for themselves, yes, a place for their own benefit, and where they could work for themselves, I would teach t
hem habits of industry, and it would help much in supporting them; and it is necessary that there should be, at least for the present, some appropriation made for them, in order to provide clothing for the women and children, and a proper place to live in. At present they are living in tents. The men are working for the military here in improving the post, and they all have an interest in them for their work, and I think a little help from your department, as above mentioned, would be better for them than to turn them loose again to wander in idleness or learn evil, or go back to bad habits again. I think it would be the best that could be done for them in the way of enlightening and Christianizing them. They would all rather be under the military authority. They say they are not cheated here, and they can see that the officers are doing all they can for them. Hoping you will give this a careful consideration, I am, sir, very respectfully,

  “Your obedient servant,

  “Sarah Winnemucca.”

  I never had any answer to this letter, nor to any of the letters I wrote to Washington, and nothing was ever done to fulfil the promise of Secretary Schurz’s paper, nor was any canvas ever sent for tents. Gen. McDowell, in the last army report1 issued before he was retired from the service in California, and which he sent to me after I arrived in Boston, wrote an urgent appeal to the government to do justice to these my suffering people, who had been snatched from their homes against their wills.

  Among the letters from the officers, in the Army Report, are two or three from Father Wilbur. He says he should be much relieved if the Piutes were not on his reservation. They have been the cause of much labor and anxiety to him. Yet he does all he can to prevent their going away. What can be the meaning of this? Is it not plain that they are a source of riches to him? He starves them and sells their supplies. He does not say much against me, but he does say that if my influence was removed my people would be contented there. This is as untrue as it was in Reinhard to say they would not stay on the Malheur Reservation. While I was in Vancouver, President Hayes and his wife came there, and I went to see them. I spoke to him as I had done in Washington to the Secretary, and said to him, “You are a husband and father, and you know how you would suffer to be separated from your wife and children by force, as my people still are, husbands from wives, parents from children, notwithstanding Secretary Schurz’s order.” Mrs. Hayes cried all the time I was talking, and he said, “I will see about it.” But nothing was ever done that I ever heard of.