Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins

“ It is true that my people sometimes distrust me, but that is because words have been put into my mouth which have turned out to be nothing but idle wind. Promises have been made to me in high places that have not been kept, and I have had to suffer for this in the loss of my people’s confidence. I have not spoken ill of others behind their backs and said fair words to their faces. I have been sincere with my own people when they have done wrong, as well as with my white brothers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I want you all to work while the government is helping us, for the government is not always going to help us. Do all you can until you get helped, and all you raise is your own to do with as you like. The reservation is all yours. The government has given it all to you and your children. I will do more. I will build a school-house, and my brother’s wife will teach your children how to read like the white children. I want three young men to learn to be blacksmiths, and three to learn to be carpenters. I want to teach you all to do like white people. ”

“ 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 ”

“ If you make fun of bad persons, you make yourself beneath them. Be kind to all, both poor and rich, and feed all that come to your wigwam, and your name can be spoken of by every one far and near. In this way you will make many friends for yourself. Be kind both to bad and good, for you don’t know your own heart. This is the way my people teach their children. It was handed down from father to son for many generations. I never in my life saw our children rude as I have seen white children and grown people in the streets. ”

“ A good many got up and left. Egan, the sub-chief, got up and said, “Why do you want to play with us? We are men, not children. We want our father to deal with us like men, and tell us just what he wants us to do; but don’t say you are going to pay us money, and then not do it. If you had told us you wanted us to work for nothing, we would have done it just as well if you had said, ‘I will pay you.’ We did not ask you to pay us. It is yourself that said you would see that government paid us, and we would like to have you pay us as you said. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My men and I have not sent for another agent. We all like our good agent Parrish. We don’t want him to leave us. He gives us everything we want. He and his men are all friendly. They are teaching us how to work, and our children are learning how to read, just like your children. What more do we want? There can be no better man than he, and why send him away? Oh, my good soldier-father, talk on paper to our Big Father in Washington, and tell him not to take him away. I tell you I never saw white men like them in all my life. I have a reservation at my birth place called Pyramid Lake. ”

“ I have known Sarah Winnemucca for a number of years, and have never known her to do or say a thing that was not perfectly upright and womanly. She is honest, true, faithful, and worthy the respect and esteem of all good people. ”

“ The government does not take care to send the good men; there are a plenty who would take pains to see and understand the chiefs and learn their characters, and their good will to the whites. But the whites have not waited to find out how good the Indians were, and what ideas they had of God, just like those of Jesus, who called him Father, just as my people do, and told men to do to others as they would be done by, just as my people teach their children to do. My people teach their children never to make fun of any one, no matter how they look. ”

“ 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 chieftain, 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.
“Now we will go and see the man-eaters. I have never shot anything in all my life but what is good to eat. In my way of thinking and in my father’s way of thinking, no man ought to kill anything unless it is good to eat. ”

“ He stood at their cabin door, and beat back the assailants with a club, and succeeded in driving them off. But my uncle and cousins were so angry with him for saving white men’s lives that they whipped him with a horsewhip. We all knew my uncle loved us. He was always kind to us; but I never could love him again as I had done after he whipped my brother,—my noble, patient brother, who bore his uncle no ill-will, but was satisfied that he had saved the lives of his friends.
Brave deeds don’t always get rewarded in this world. ”

“ They not only take care of their children together, but they do everything together; and when they grow blind, which I am sorry to say is very common, for the smoke they live in destroys then eyes at last, they take sweet care of one another. Marriage is a sweet thing when people love each other. If women could go into your Congress I think justice would soon be done to the Indians. I can’t tell about all Indians; but I know my own people are kind to everybody that does not do them harm; but they will not be imposed upon, and when people are too bad they rise up and resist them. ”

“ I went home and told Mattie all, and she said, “Well, sister, we cannot help it if the white people won’t keep their word. We can’t help it. We have to work for them and if they get our people not to love us, by telling what is not true to them, what can we do? It is they, not us.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ You see the poor white man has no one to help him. He gets some land and he works it as best he can. Now you see the government is good to you. It gives you land for nothing, and will give you more—that is, it will give you clothes, and a store, and I want you, chiefs of the Piutes, to ask all your people to come here to make homes for themselves. Send out your men everywhere, and have them come to this place. This is the best place for you all, and as soon as we get started, I will write to your father in Washington, to send us a mill to grind our grain. ”

“ If we had made war with you, and had taken prisoners in battle, we would not say anything; but you helped the thing along, and for four years you have come on the Malheur Reservation, and told Egan and Oytes to make war against the whites. You have called them fools for staying on the reservation to starve; and another thing you have helped the Bannocks to fight the soldiers. You are nothing but cowards; nothing but barking coyotes; you are neither persons nor men. We were never your enemies, for we have let you come to our country and always welcomed you. ”

“ If he can make you afraid of him that is all he wants, but if you are not afraid of him he will be one of the best men you ever saw. We will tell our agent what he said to us.” Oytes came riding fast, and overtook us. “You are our good teacher; don’t you think our agent has treated me badly, and do you blame me for wanting to go away?” I said, “Oytes, I have lived a long time with the white people, and I know what they do. They are people who are very kind to any one who is ready to do whatever they wish. You see the agent is kind to all but you. ”

“ The chief’s tent is the largest tent, and it is the council-tent, where every one goes who wants advice. In the evenings the head men go there to discuss everything, for the chiefs do not rule like tyrants; they discuss everything with their people, as a father would in his family. Often they sit up all night. They discuss the doings of all, if they need to be advised. If a boy is not doing well they talk that over, and if the women are interested they can share in the talks. If there is not room enough inside,
they all go out of doors, and make a great circle. ”

“ It has always been a mystery to me what this beef contract is for. If they mean it for a license to sell beef, why don’t they say so? I defy them to find a man, woman, or child outside their ring who has ever received a pound of meat of any kind from them. I have a brother who lives on the agency, and he has never got an ounce of meat that he has not paid for. The contractors, Griswold, McMasters, etc., really keep a butcher’s shop, but call it a beef contract. Those that have money can come up and buy. Those that have none stand back and cry, often with hunger. ”

“ Poor General! he had some hard words with a citizen who owned a stage, because he wanted thirty-five dollars a day to take us to Reinhard’s crossing of Malheur River. I stood by them when they were talking, and I could hold in no longer.
“That is the way with you citizens. You call on the soldiers for protection and you all 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.” ”

“ As soon as we got to our home, my brother got all his people together, and told them to get ten young men and go and watch the crossing of the river, and if any one tried to cross, to catch him. “If there is more than one kill them if you can; by so doing we will save ourselves, for you know if we allowed our people to kill the white men we should all be killed here. It is better that we should kill some of our own men than to be all killed here.” ”

“ One afternoon Mattie and I were sent out to get five women who got away during the night, and an officer was sent with us. We were riding very fast, and my sister Mattie's horse jumped on one side and threw her off and hurt her. The blood ran out of her mouth, and I thought she would die right off; but, poor dear, she went on, for an ambulance was at our command. She had great suffering during our journey.
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. ”

“ I have promised to be a friend to white people, and I have done just as I said, although they have killed my people here and there. I have not unburied my bow and arrows yet, and I hope, my children, that you will keep our promise to the end of the world, and then it will be well with us. ”

“ Oh, dear readers, these soldiers had gone only sixty miles away to Muddy Lake, where my people were then living and fishing, and doing nothing to any one. The soldiers rode up to their encampment and fired into it, and killed almost all the people that were there. Oh, it is a fearful thing to tell, but it must be told. Yes, it must be told by me. It was all old men, women and children that were killed; for my father had all the young men with him, at the sink of Carson on a hunting excursion, or they would have been killed too. ”

“ The white men have brought back the other men, and they say that they have hung two men.” My brother told the Washoe chief that his people had nothing to do with what the white people had done. “It is you who ought to pay the poor mother and sister and wife of your own tribe, because you gave them up yourself, therefore you must not blame us. We only did our duty, and we all know that the white men did men did nothing to us, and we did no more than what they would do for us.” ”