Abstract
Newspapers have been an often underutilized source when recounting our frontier history. Official government reports provide general information, and diaries can provide personal insight. However, newspapers provide an unmatched daily or weekly record of events written by trained observers and crafted by some of the best writers of their day. Personal and cultural bias flourished in these newspapers, but they accurately reflected cultural opinions and mores of their time and place and provide us with rich insight.
Carpenter and Sorisio’s The Newspaper Warrior focuses on a nearly forgotten cultural activist, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins. She is a truly remarkable figure. In a time when women were expected to stay in the background, Winnemucca Hopkins took center stage. She advocated for her Paiute nation and for all Native Americans. Her race and gender denied her access to most careers, to public office, and even the right to vote. Her ability to communicate, both verbally and through the written word, transcended those obstacles. Her skill and talent brought her to the attention of policy makers like Massachusetts Senator Henry Dawes and helped her to influence far reaching legislation.
Born in 1844 in what is now the state of Nevada, Sarah Winnemucca had to straddle two worlds: the traditional world of her ancestors and the new world of the encroaching White civilization. Almost two thirds of the Paiutes perished, through disease or war, during the first few decades of contacts with the Whites. Sarah was sent to live with a White family to be educated when she was 13. She became fluent in English, Spanish, and three native languages. In 1865, when Sarah was 21, her mother, baby brother, and other relatives were killed in the Mud Lake Massacre. Despite all of the cultural and personal losses, Sarah Winnemucca’s family still favored peace and reconciliation with the Whites.
She and her family began to perform in amateur theatricals in towns across the West in the mid-1860s. Their show was advertised as an authentic example of “Indian life.” It was merely a pantomime of what the White audience expected complete with feather headdresses and stereotypical clothing. They once even re-enacted the Pocahontas legend. Sarah Winnemucca used these stage appearances to plead for her people and their plight. Eventually she parleyed her stage reputation into a literary reputation.
In a letter to then Indian Commissioner, Ely Samuel Parker, she called for humane treatment of Native Americans. This launched her journalism career and she was soon writing editorials for newspapers across the country as well as giving lectures to packed houses.
In 1878, Sarah Winnemucca served as a translator, guide, and scout for the Army during the short-lived Bannock War. Some northern Paiutes were removed 350 miles away from their homeland allegedly because of their role in the war. Nearly 20% of those removed perished during the trip. Sarah Winnemucca protested in public forums and eventually got the Government to investigate. She met with President Rutherford B. Hayes and Interior Secretary Carl Schurz and got them to allow the northern Paiutes to return home. For the next decade, she worked tirelessly through print and stage lectures to find justice for Native Americans. Some Eastern publications romantically portrayed her as an Indian Princess and held her up as a paragon of virtue.
Of course, she also met with vicious opposition. Indian Agent W. V. Rinehart described her as “ . . . a notorious liar and malicious schemer who had been several times married, but by reason of her adulterous and drunken habits, neither squawmen nor Indians would long live with her” (p. 10).
Carpenter and Sorisio have separated Sarah Winnemucca’s writing into three chronological sections. Part One focuses articles from 1864 to 1882; Part Two focuses on 1883 to 1884; Part Three covers Winnemucca’s last years from 1885 to 1891. The book features excerpts from Sarah Winnemucca’s writing, newspaper articles on her speeches, and public appearances and editorials condemning or praising her work.
It is clear that the authors have done thorough research in gathering these newspaper stories and excerpts. They state that the “collection is not an attempt to provide an exhaustive record of all newspaper accounts by or about Winnemucca . . . ” (p. 3). I will take them at their word, but if it not exhaustive, it is certainly wide-ranging. There are excerpts from newspapers all over the country, from cities large and small. What is most impressive is the richness of the language used by these editors and reporters.
The Eastern press was more likely to romanticize Winnemucca and her family referring to her as an “Indian princess.” In contrast, the Western newspapers like the Idaho Avalanche were critical of the “gush and romance the eastern press wrap around the Indians” (p. 20). The newspaper wrote, “The truth about Sarah Winnemucca is, that she is a drunken strumpet; her royal father is a dirty beggar, whose royal dignity would permit him to accept cold grub, or any petty charity from the whites” (pp. 20-21).
The authors write that
Winnemucca was both an unconventional woman who got into bar fights and a woman who performed white femininity on occasions; she donned the costume of a “princess” and the necklace of an “exemplary” Indian; she was humorous and sentimental; she was tribal and national; she was “West” and she was “East”: facts that confound the logic of nineteenth-century newspapers and even much of the scholarship today. (pp. 29-30).
My one criticism of the book is that I would have liked a bibliography to help me track down the myriad of sources cited by Carpenter and Sorisio.
Winnemucca and her contemporary Suzette “Bright Eyes” La Flesche have been long overlooked, and this book offers much-needed insight into the Indian side of the story and how Native Americans were portrayed by the newspapers of the time. The book would also be an excellent classroom resource. It could provide instructors and students with insight in many areas, including journalism, American history, civil rights, and women’s issues.