Sarah Winnemucca

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (born Thocmentony, meaning "Shell Flower; also seen as "Tocmetone" in Northern Paiute;[1] c. 1844 – October 17, 1891) was a Northern Paiute author, activist (lecturer) and educator (school organizer). Her maiden name is Winnemucca.

Statement to Bureau of Indian Affairs (1884)
In So Here I Am: Speeches by great women to empower and inspire edited by Anna Russell (2019)


 * But here came an order from the President to take all the five hundred Piutes under your care there and take them across the Blue Mountains, and across the Columbia River, to Yakama Reservation'. This order came in December. Imagine what a severe winter it is out there at that time. They could not disobey the order although everything was said that could be in our behalf. But we took up the march and the soldiers had good buffalo shoes and buffalo robes and prepared for their comfort, and here were my people. They were poor and had no clothing and no blankets and no buffalo robes, and nothing to make them warm, because we did not belong to a buffalo country. We took up our march and marched over drifting snow, my people carrying their little children. Well it took us a good while. Some times, after we camped here and there, some would come along making a great noise crying. Some white people would mimic and mock them. Women would be coming along crying, and it was not because they were cold, for they were used to the cold. It was not because they were sick, for they suffered a great deal. The women were crying because they were carrying their little frozen children in their arms


 * We came on here and I pleaded- at least my father did - and of course my father asked for that same reservation back again. Says he 'I did not do anything'. He said 'my people did not do anything'. He said that our people had saved the lives of white people, and were now scattered everywhere and why should my people be punished like that?