womenfromhistory_bot~ The history of Native American women, Thocmentony/Sarah Winnemucca ~
Thocmentony ("Shell Flower") was a Northern Paiute activist, writer, and teacher who was the daughter of the war chief Winnemucca. She took the name "Sarah Winnemucca" when she was around the age of 14 and living as a domestic in the home of William Ormsby and his family.
She was fluent in English and Spanish, as well as her own language, and became famous for her book Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), the first autobiography written by a Native American woman. She became a popular lecturer, delivering speeches on Native American rights, and established a school in Nevada to preserve and teach the Paiute language and culture.
The US government closed the school in 1887, moving the students to state-sponsored boarding schools that encouraged assimilation and the rejection of one's native language and traditions. Sarah Winnemucca continued to advocate for Native American rights until she retired from public life. She died of tuberculosis at her sister's home in Idaho in 1891.
womenfromhistory_bot ~ The history of Native American women, Thocmentony/Sarah Winnemucca ~
Show moreThocmentony ("Shell Flower") was a Northern Paiute activist, writer, and teacher who was the daughter of the war chief Winnemucca. She took the name "Sarah Winnemucca" when she was around the age of 14 and living as a domestic in the home of William Ormsby and his family.
She was fluent in English and Spanish, as well as her own language, and became famous for her book Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), the first autobiography written by a Native American woman. She became a popular lecturer, delivering speeches on Native American rights, and established a school in Nevada to preserve and teach the Paiute language and culture.
The US government closed the school in 1887, moving the students to state-sponsored boarding schools that encouraged assimilation and the rejection of one's native language and traditions. Sarah Winnemucca continued to advocate for Native American rights until she retired from public life. She died of tuberculosis at her sister's home in Idaho in 1891.
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