Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Sarah Winnemucca, Part 2 About this episode As an adult, Sarah Winnemucca spent a lot of time trying to advocate for the Northern Paiute, although her legacy in that regard has some complexities.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Deanna Flores is a flag football star, a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, and now host of a new podcast.
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1:16 Tracy V. Wilson? Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Workplace chaos. We've all been there. Deadlines are slipping, projects are piling up, and suddenly you realize the missing piece is the right person. That's when you say, this is a job for sponsored jobs. With Indeed Sponsored Jobs, your job post gets a boost so you can connect with quality candidates faster. In fact, sponsored jobs posted directly
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2:10 Holly Frey? Podcast. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio and partnership with Argenx, listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:58 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
3:01 Holly Frey? And I'm Holly Frey.
3:02 Tracy V. Wilson? This is part two of our episode on Sarah Winnemucca. Last time, we talked about her early life and her Northern Paiute band's first encounters with white people. Where we had left off, a lot of her people had been moved to Mallory Reservation. And their situation there got a lot worse after Major W. V. Reinhardt became Indian agent. There is a gap of a year or so in her account at this point, and we're starting where her account picks up again.
3:36 Holly Frey? In 1877 or 1878, while Sarah Winnemucca was living and working at a ranch owned by people named either Cooley or Corley, several Northern Paiutes traveled to see her to ask for help. Conditions had continued to deteriorate at Mallory Reservation, and that was where they were living. People were starving, and they did not have enough basic supplies, including clothing. They thought that Sarah might be able to go with them to Camp Harney to ask for help, or maybe even go to Washington, DC to advocate on their behalf.
4:12 Tracy V. Wilson? But Sarah really did not have any money at that point to take a trip all the way to Washington, since she had already been expelled from that same reservation for reporting Reinhardt to Camp Harney. She also thought she might just make things worse if she tried to go there and talk to them, or that Reinhardt might have her arrested or sent away as soon as he learned that she was there. So this party left, but groups of people kept coming to see her. They came back several times over the following months. And eventually, somebody told her that a lot of her people had been driven off of the reservation. A group of Paiutes and Bannocks had started camping alongside a river, and they were
4:56 Tracy V. Wilson? trying to survive there just on whatever fish they could catch.
5:01 Holly Frey? Sarah suggested things that they might try to do to advocate for themselves, including getting help from the reservation's new interpreter. But they said that this interpreter just did whatever Reinhardt wanted. So eventually, Sarah agreed to return to Malheur. Because of the risk of being sent away again, she started meeting with people immediately after arriving, including a Paiute leader named Egan and a man she identified as Bannock Jack. They dictated their accounts to her, which she wrote down, and she started preparing to go to Washington. Egan managed almost $30 to help pay for the journey, and she had about $20 that she had been paid to take someone with her when she traveled to Malheur.
5:45 Holly Frey? She planned to raise more money by selling her wagon and her horses.
5:50 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, Egan had managed to collect this money by asking everyone to contribute anything that they had available to contribute. Sarah did not make it to Washington DC. At this point, though, not long after setting out, she learned that ongoing conflict between the Bannock tribe and the United States had escalated into war. This had originated at Fort Hall in southern Idaho, where people were facing a lot of the same issues as at Malheur, including a lack of food and basic resources, and progressive loss of ancestral lands and traditional ways of living. A lot of the people at Fort Hall had been moved there from very far away, were totally unfamiliar with the area.
6:34 Tracy V. Wilson? The introduction of pigs into this part of North America had also been a major issue as they dug up and ate the camus root that was a staple food source.
6:45 Holly Frey? The war had begun in May of 1878 with a Bannock force led by Chief Buffalo Horn, who also had Paiute allies. Fort Hall was roughly 300 miles away from Malheur, and while Sarah's brother Natchez and father Winnemucca had tried to maintain peace in the region, the conflict had been spreading. Egan, who we mentioned a moment ago, led a force that joined the Bannocks, as did Paiute spiritual leader Oates.
7:14 Tracy V. Wilson? The peacemaking efforts of Natchez and Winnemucca meant that there were already people who considered Sarah's entire family to be enemies and traitors. And people thought this about Sarah herself, especially after she offered her services to Captain Reuben Bernard of the US Army. In her mind, what led her to do this was that the best thing for everyone that would have the least loss of life would be if this war came to a speedy end. So, among other things, she offered to try to convince Paiutes in the area who had not joined the Bannock side to work as scouts or as messengers and to help negotiate a truce.
7:55 Holly Frey? She tried to convince two Paiute men to act as messengers and to travel to Camp Harney or to Malheur and see if authorities there had any news about where the Bannock force was located. These men refused and also told her that they had heard her brother Natchez had been killed. So, on June 13, 1878, Sarah went to Captain Bernard and told him that she would go and find out where they were herself, along with a couple of men who had agreed to go with her. She would bring back her father and any other Paiutes who weren't joining the Bannock side. Although he didn't think she was likely to succeed, Bernard got approval for this plan from General Oliver O. Howard,
8:37 Holly Frey? and he gave Sarah a letter with instructions for her to be provided with horses and help if she needed it.
8:45 Tracy V. Wilson? It really was not clear whether Sarah was going to find her father and his people encamped somewhere, or if they had been taken captive. But soon after setting off, she and the men who were with her, who she identified as John and George, found a trail that they thought might belong to a Bannock party, or possibly to her father's people. They followed this trail. They found places where people had clearly made camp and spotted a burned-down ranch along the way. Eventually, as they approached Juniper Lake in southeastern Oregon, they saw two men who looked like they were running from something. One of them turned out to be her brother, Lee, who told her that he and her father
9:29 Tracy V. Wilson? and others had all been taken prisoner by the Bannocks and were being held about six miles away. Lee also told her that their brother, Natchez, had not been killed. He had been sentenced to death for aiding the white people, but he had escaped.
9:44 Holly Frey? Sarah sneaked into this encampment and found her father. She told him to have the women and children start gathering firewood for the night so they had a reason to get away from the camp. After it got dark, she led her father, her brother Lee, and three cousins out of the camp. Lee worked his way ahead of them to get some horses, and he sent his wife, Mattie, back with one for Sarah. In Sarah's words by that point, quote, "It was like a dream. I could not get along at all. I almost fell down at every step, my father dragging me along."
10:19 Tracy V. Wilson? After they all rendezvoused at Juniper Lake, they made their way back to Captain Bernard, some of them on horseback and some of them on foot, and sometimes being pursued by the Bannocks. They found food and water wherever they could. Toward the end of the journey, Sarah and Mattie rode ahead to get word to the army that they had people with them and that they were being pursued. Troops were sent to escort everyone else back.
10:46 Holly Frey? In Sarah's words, "This was the hardest work I ever did for the government in all my life. The whole round trip from 10 o'clock June 13th up to June 15th, arriving back at 5:30 PM, having been in the saddle night and day, distance about 223 miles. Yes, I went for the government when the officers could not get an Indian man or a white man to go for love or money. I, only an Indian woman, went and saved my father and his people."
11:17 Tracy V. Wilson? After this, Sarah and Mattie started working as scouts, guides, and interpreters for General Howard. This meant that they were working against the Bannocks, but also against bands of their own people that had joined the Bannock side. Buffalo Horn had been killed on June 8th, but battles between the US Army and the Bannocks and Northern Paiutes and other indigenous allies continued until mid-September of 1878. Egan was murdered toward the end of the war, along with some of his family, reportedly by a chief from another tribe who hoped to both collect the bounty and avoid punishment for having joined this uprising. Oates and his force ultimately surrendered.
12:02 Holly Frey? After the war, the Northern Paiute bands who had not participated were sent to Camp Harney, Oregon, and told that from there, they would be sent back to Malheur. Sarah encouraged them to go, but in her words, "Some of my people said, 'We know there is something wrong. We don't like to go.' But the officers told them there was nothing to fear. They would be sent to the Malheur Agency. My people asked me over and over again. I told them, 'I did not know any more than they did, therefore I could not say.' At last, I said, 'What need have you to be afraid? You have not done anything. All the officers know that you have acted for the whites. General Howard knows all about you. None of you have fought
12:47 Holly Frey? the whites. You have all done your duty to the whites during the campaign.'" Her brother Natchez also told them the same thing.
12:55 Tracy V. Wilson? But instead of being sent back to Malur, these northern Paiute bands were sent to the Yakima Reservation across the Columbia River roughly 350 miles north. Sarah felt personally betrayed when she heard about this order. She was also afraid of what her people would think of her and whether they would ever trust her again. The commanding officer told her to keep the information to herself, but she later confided in Mattie. And Mattie told her, quote, "Sister, we cannot help it if the white people won't keep their word."
13:30 Holly Frey? These Paiute bands were forced to make this trip in winter, and they were given only about a week to prepare. Although she and Mattie collected as many furs and blankets as they could, they didn't have enough clothing to protect themselves from the elements. Mattie was also making the journey while badly injured after being thrown from a horse while trying to find a group of women who had escaped during the night.
13:54 Tracy V. Wilson? After describing Mattie's injury in her book, Sarah wrote, quote, "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. Yes, you, 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. But oh, my God, leaving this pathway marked by crimson lines of blood
14:38 Tracy V. Wilson? and strewed by the bones of two races, the interior and the invader. And I am crying out to you for justice. Yes, pleading for the far-off plains of the West, for the dusky mourner, for whose tears of love are pleading for her husband or for their children, who are sent far away from them. Your Christian minister will hold my people against their will, not because he loves them, no, far from it, but because it puts money in his pockets."
15:08 Holly Frey? We will talk about what happened when they got to Yakima after a sponsor break.
15:15 Speaker 03 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
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17:23 Holly Frey? We've all done it, tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends.
18:05 Holly Frey? Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
18:26 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
19:11 Tracy V. Wilson? only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
19:26 Holly Frey? Deanna Flores, flag football star, trailblazer, broadcaster, and entrepreneur, knows what pressure feels like. She knows what it takes to step up in the moment, and she knows that even the biggest achievement is never the end of the story.
19:39 Tracy V. Wilson? In the new podcast, Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture, including sports, business, wellness, and entertainment, to find the whole person behind the public identity.
19:50 Holly Frey? Whether she's talking to an athlete on the field, a founder heading into a pitch, or a musician before a show, the conversation starts with the official bio ends.
20:00 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, Deanna shares her own experiences, questions, and even doubts. Her guests learn from her, she learns from them, and you might pick up something along the way. No lectures, no know-it-all host, just real people being real.
20:12 Holly Frey? Come curious and leave with something you can use.
20:15 Tracy V. Wilson? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores out now on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico.
20:33 Tracy V. Wilson? The northern Paiute bands who had been sent to Camp Harney arrived at Yakima in February of 1879. A number of people died of exposure or illness along the way, including two babies who were born during the journey. People continued to die after arriving at the reservation, both from the ordeal they had just been through and because of the conditions they were in at the reservation. They were essentially put in a concentration camp there. In Sarah's words, quote, "They had a kind of shed made to put us in. You know what kind of shed you make for your stock in wintertime? It was of that kind. Oh, how we did suffer with cold. There was no wood, and the snow was waist-deep,
21:18 Tracy V. Wilson? and many died off, just as cattle or horses do after traveling so long in the cold." Mattie was one of the people who died that spring, and within two years of their arrival, only 440 of the 510 people who had made the journey were still living. Those who survived faced increasing tension and hostility from members of the Yakima Nation, who understandably didn't want to lose part of their limited reservation land.
21:46 Tracy V. Wilson? Sarah sent her brother to San Francisco and then to Washington DC to try to convince the government to give the Paiute a reservation somewhere that was actually within their ancestral homeland. She also started teaching and working as an interpreter, although she found that she was paid a lot less working for an Indian agent on a reservation than she had been working for the military. Her pay just wasn't enough to cover her board while she was working. She wrote to Carl Schurz, who was Secretary of the Interior, for help, but didn't get a response.
22:21 Holly Frey? So she started publicly lecturing again, both to try to get support for her people to be able to return home and to try to support herself. She started a month-long lecture tour at Platts Hall in San Francisco in November of 1879. Her lectures incorporated northern Paiute oral tradition with rhetoric that would be approachable for white audiences, including incorporating humor and satire to make her point about the plight of her people without making white audience members feel attacked. She pointedly criticized Reinhardt, who at this point was trying to get the Paiute bands that hadn't been caught up in the fallout from the Bannock War to move back to Malheur.
23:03 Tracy V. Wilson? For many of her public appearances, Sarah Wenamaka wore a costume that was inspired by indigenous styles of clothing. As has been the case with some of the other indigenous women that we have talked about on the show who tried to advocate for their people with white audiences, this wasn't what she would have worn in her day-to-day life among the northern Paiutes. It incorporated elements from other nations and peoples, but they were all things that a white audience would recognize as indigenous clothing. This combined with the idea that being Wenamaka's daughter made her the equivalent of Paiute royalty. So the San Francisco Chronicle, for example, called her "The Princess Sarah." Sometimes
23:48 Tracy V. Wilson? her brother or cousins or other family members also appeared onstage with her in kind of a performance.
23:54 Holly Frey? Sarah also continually wrote letters to government and military officials and to newspapers. She sent a petition to Secretary Schurz, asking for permission for her people to return to Malheur with the reservation placed under the control of Samuel B. Parrish or someone else who would be sympathetic to them.
24:14 Tracy V. Wilson? She also started working on a plan to visit Washington to try to meet with President Rutherford B. Hayes and the Secretary of the Interior. For a time, the federal government had really discouraged indigenous nations from sending delegations to the Capitol. But in the late 19th century, the government started to see it as an opportunity to sort of impress indigenous leaders, basically implying that trying to wage war against a nation with such a capital would be a useless exercise. Carlisle Indian Industrial School was also established in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1879. So a lot of indigenous leaders who visited the school from farther away also wanted
24:58 Tracy V. Wilson? to take the opportunity to visit Washington about 100 miles away from Carlisle. These visits to Washington were very tightly controlled on the part of the US government, with indigenous delegations usually being housed at the same hotel, kept away from reporters, and escorted everywhere they went.
25:18 Holly Frey? The Winnemucca did get to Washington DC, and they briefly met with the president. They also had two meetings with the Secretary of the Interior. Sarah did not wear her stage costume for these audiences. She wore the kind of clothing that would have been expected for a respectable white woman of the era. At the first meeting, Schurz mostly asked her for details about the Bannock War. But at the second meeting, after hearing her make her case, Schurz told Sarah that the Northern Paiutes who had been sent to Yakima would be given permission to return to Mallory Reservation, and that they would be given land allotments. He later also promised that they would be able to pick up canvas tents when they reached Lovelock, Nevada.
26:03 Tracy V. Wilson? The Winnemucca arrived back in Nevada on February 2 of 1880, and they learned that Reinhardt had basically been running a smear campaign against Sarah Winnemucca in the newspapers while they were gone. Then they faced another setback when they arrived at Lovelock and they tried to pick up those tents. They were told that they would not be given any tents and that the only supplies they could get would be at Malur. Then, once they got to Yakima, the Indian agent there told her he had not gotten any kind of letter from Schur's about allowing the Northern Paiute to go back to Malur. The letter that Sarah had with her was not enough to satisfy him,
26:44 Tracy V. Wilson? and he also tried to bribe her to keep its contents a secret. Schur's never followed through on the tents or on the relocation back to Malur, and Malur Reservation was ultimately disestablished.
26:59 Holly Frey? In 1881, Sarah briefly met with Rutherford B. Hayes again when he was visiting Fort Vancouver, and she again tried to get approval for her people to leave Yakima Reservation. He seemed sympathetic to her, but he also didn't take any action. So Sarah encouraged her people to start what was essentially a campaign of direct action. They refused to farm or build houses or do anything that was expected of them at Yakima as an act of protest. This naturally made their living situation a lot harder, and it led to Sarah being expelled from the reservation. But after this, some families were given permission to leave.
27:42 Tracy V. Wilson? When Robert H. Milroy became Indian agent at the Yakima Reservation in 1882, he seems to have realized that the Northern Paiute would never consider that to be their home. He started working with the people who wanted to leave to place them at reservations where other Paiute were living. And he also didn't really try to stop people who just left on their own. Over the course of about four years, all of the remaining Northern Paiute left Yakima Reservation, but at that point, that was only about half of those who had arrived there in 1879.
28:20 Holly Frey? On December 5th, 1881, Sarah married Louis H. Hopkins in San Francisco. On October 21st of the following year, her father Winnemucca died after a long illness. And the year after that, she traveled to Boston.
28:36 Holly Frey? It's likely that people that she had met during her 1879 lecture tour in San Francisco had encouraged her to make this trip. Boston was known as a home for suffragists and reformers and other people who might have sympathy for her. After the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, some abolitionists turned their attention to indigenous peoples' rights.
28:59 Tracy V. Wilson? It's not entirely clear whether she might have been specifically directed to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and her sister Mary Peabody Mann, which I imagine like some of the other Peabodies in this area might have said it, Peabody. But those are the two Boston women who became a big part of Sarah's life and work from this point. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was an educator and part of the transcendentalist movement and is known for starting the first English-language kindergarten in the United States. She came up in our episode on Milton Bradley. Mary Peabody Mann was a teacher and a reformer and the widow of educator Horace Mann, who is not the same Horace Mann who was friends with Horace Walpole.
29:44 Holly Frey? With the help of Mary Peabody Mann, Sarah Winnemucca wrote and published Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, which we've been reading from in these episodes. This is believed to be the first autobiography written by a Native American woman, although some scholars frame it more as a work of autoethnography. It's not a book about Sarah Winnemucca's life in isolation. It's interwoven with the story of the Northern Paiute during her lifetime. This reflects the Northern Paiute worldview. It wouldn't have been appropriate for her to tell the story of herself alone. But beyond that, their oral traditions and their way of living were all very communal, with families making decisions collaboratively,
30:28 Holly Frey? based on consensus, and a strong sense of how everyone in the community was interrelated. This is also one of the reasons she is sometimes seen as a controversial figure, since there were times when she did things and made decisions on her own without that consensus. The book begins with Sarah's birth and the coming of white people to their land, and it ends with Secretary Schurz's unfulfilled pledges to allow her people to return to Malheur.
30:58 Tracy V. Wilson? Mary Peabody Mann wrote the preface to this book and added some explanatory footnotes. And she also assembled a lot of letters and testimonials about Sarah to include at the end. She wrote in the preface, quote, "Finding that in extemporaneous speech, she could only speak at one time of a few points, she determined to write out the most important part of what she wished to say. In fighting with her literary deficiencies, she loses some of the fervid eloquence which her extraordinary colloquial command of the English language enables her to utter. But I am confident that no one would desire that her own original words should be altered."
31:41 Holly Frey? The relationship between Mary and Sarah seems to have been collaborative and mutually beneficial. Sarah was known for being engaging and well spoken onstage, but elements of written language were more of a struggle for her. So Mary helped her with her written English and with thoughts on how the book would be most effective for white readers. Sarah also expanded Mary's experience and worldview, which influenced Mary's work on her novel, Juanita, A Romance of Real Life in Cuba 50 Years Ago. That book came out four years later. That novel and Advocating for the Northern Paiutes were Mary's two biggest projects in the last years of her life.
32:24 Tracy V. Wilson? In addition to helping Sarah get this book published, the sisters helped her promote it. This included Elizabeth Peabody writing letters to her connections in the transcendentalist movement, including people like Ralph Waldo Emerson. And Sarah promoted it herself as she continued lecturing around the Northeast, doing more than 300 lectures between the spring of 1883 and the summer of 1884. It's not entirely clear where her husband was at this point and how much he supported all of this public work.
32:58 Holly Frey? We'll talk more after a sponsor break.
33:04 Holly Frey? We've all done it, tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends.
33:47 Holly Frey? Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
34:08 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
34:53 Tracy V. Wilson? only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
35:07 Holly Frey? Deanna Flores, flag football star, trailblazer, broadcaster and entrepreneur, knows what pressure feels like. She knows what it takes to step up in the moment, and she knows that even the biggest achievement is never the end of the story.
35:20 Tracy V. Wilson? In the new podcast, Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture, including sports, business, wellness and entertainment, to find the whole person behind the public identity.
35:32 Holly Frey? Whether she's talking to an athlete on the field, a founder heading into a pitch, or a musician before a show, the conversation starts with the official bio ends.
35:42 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, Deanna shares her own experiences, questions and even doubts. Her guests learn from her, she learns from them, and you might pick up something along the way. No lectures, no know-it-all host, just real people being real.
35:54 Holly Frey? Come curious and leave with something you can use.
35:57 Tracy V. Wilson? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores out now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico.
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37:19 Tracy V. Wilson? Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five- and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
37:56 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1884, Sarah Winnemucca was back in Washington DC. She presented a petition to Congress proposing that the Northern Paiutes be restored to the Mallor Reservation, including those who had been sent to the Yakima Reservation after the Bannock War. She also spoke before the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs on April 22 of that year. She described a lot of what we've talked about so far, including her tribe's experiences with Reinhardt as Indian agent, and the fact that most of the Paiute bands she was connected to had been forced to move to Yakima even though they had not participated in the Bannock War. The land that was part of Mallor had mostly been taken over by white settlers.
38:40 Tracy V. Wilson? So she also suggested that a home might be made for them at Fort McDermott, where many of them had lived previously and which the Army was expected to abandon. Ultimately, on July 6, 1884, the Senate passed a bill that allowed the Paiutes to return to Pyramid Lake Reservation. But much of that land was being inhabited by squatters, and nothing was really done to try to deal with that. And after this, Sarah also couldn't get hired as an interpreter or as a teacher. The reasons why are mostly speculative. Whether it had something to do with Reinhardt's smear campaign against her, all her speaking
39:21 Tracy V. Wilson? and her advocacy, or the fact that she'd been expelled from multiple reservations for actions she had taken to try to help and protect her people. It's also possible that the authorities making these hiring decisions understood that after everything that had happened so far, and her public persona as an Indian princess, a lot of people among her tribe just didn't trust her anymore. Sarah was also dealing with a personal crisis. Her husband Louis had contracted tuberculosis and he had also run up a bunch of gambling debts and then tried to pay them off with forged checks. Sarah felt like she had no choice other than to use money from her book sales and lecture
40:03 Tracy V. Wilson? tours, along with money that the Peabody sisters had raised for the Paiutes to pay those debts off. Some of the white reformers she had been working with really saw her as the victim in all of this, but others started to suspect that she was some kind of a grifter.
40:20 Holly Frey? In 1885, Sarah went to live with her brother Natchez and she started working on a plan to start her own school. The United States had started building a system of boarding schools to separate indigenous children from their families and cultures. We have talked about these schools in several previous episodes, including our two-parter on the Fort Shaw Indian School girls' basketball team and our three-parter on Jim Thorpe. These schools purported to teach indigenous children what they would need to know to survive in a white world, but they were one component of an ongoing genocide. On-reservation Day schools also fulfilled the same purpose as the boarding schools,
41:02 Holly Frey? but without sending the children away from their families.
41:06 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, there's been a multi-year investigation into these schools in recent years and just a couple of days ago, as of when we are recording this, President Joe Biden formally apologized for this boarding school system. Sarah's school was not part of this and it was different. Rather than forcing students to speak only in English and punishing them for speaking their own language or observing their own cultural practices the way the boarding schools did, Sarah's approach was bilingual. Her students would speak to her in their native language and then she would translate that into English. In her words, quote, "I attribute the success of my school not to my being a scholar and
41:48 Tracy V. Wilson? a good teacher, but because I am my own interpreter and my heart is in my work." This school was also meant to preserve, not eliminate, northern Paiute traditions and cultural practices among the students. She called it the Peabody School for Indian Children, although I did read in one source that Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and her sister, they didn't really want it to be named after them. It did not say specifically why they were not comfortable with that.
42:14 Holly Frey? Sarah couldn't get money to build a schoolhouse on land on her brother's ranch, so she started with a brush shelter with benches for the students to sit on. Or they would sit on the ground and use the benches as desks. She hoped her students would teach their parents English and how to read and write, and maybe go on to become teachers themselves, following this same model of preserving their language and culture.
42:41 Tracy V. Wilson? The boarding schools and on-reservation day schools weren't compulsory yet when she started this school, although they would become compulsory later. And Sarah got a lot of interest from families who did not want to send their children to one of these government schools. In the spring of 1887, she got hundreds of applications. That was far more than she could possibly accommodate. But while she was getting lots of interest and potential students, she had a lot of trouble getting funding. She was basically doing the opposite of what the government wanted in government-funded schools. Most missionary societies that had some kind of an interest in education for indigenous
43:25 Tracy V. Wilson? students were also funding schools that were focused on Christianization and assimilation. Although Sarah had become a Methodist at some point, this was not the focus of her school at all. She was also really critical of a lot of missionaries and a lot of missionary efforts, describing them as being focused on proselytizing and converting people rather than seeing to their basic needs in education.
43:51 Holly Frey? Her school faced some other challenges as well. Sarah had developed neuralgia and she had some kind of recurring illness that may have been malaria, which had been a big problem on the Yakima Reservation. At one point, a government official arrived to try to take her students to a boarding school, and she refused to let them. Both the school and her brother's ranch also faced a financial crisis when her husband took their harvest to San Francisco and offered natchez only $50 when he returned. That was far less than the crop was worth, and the crop had been meant for both their income and their food.
44:32 Holly Frey? It seems like after this, Sarah kept the school going, at least in part, through gambling.
44:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Lewis Hopkins died of malaria on October 18th, 1887, at the age of 38. That year, Congress passed the Dawes Act. The Dawes Act authorized the breakup of reservation land, which had been designated for tribes collectively, so that it could be individually allotted to tribal members instead. Sarah had written to Senator Henry L. Dawes with a number of suggested changes to this bill. One of them was that she argued that chiefs of each tribe should be the ones to decide how to allot the land, since they would know the most about who would benefit from that. They would definitely know more than somebody like the Secretary of the Interior.
45:23 Tracy V. Wilson? These suggested changes were not incorporated into the bill, though.
45:27 Holly Frey? Sarah thought the Dawes Act would help her people, and Senator Dawes was one of the people that she thought had been honest and fair with her. But the Dawes Act was catastrophic. Between 1887 and 1934, roughly 60% of land that had belonged to indigenous nations and people had passed out of indigenous communities, nearly all of it going to white people. And of course, that was the reservation land that indigenous nations had been left with after centuries of settler colonialism, conquest, and genocide.
46:02 Tracy V. Wilson? The late 1880s was also when the spiritual movement known as the Ghost Dance was evolving among indigenous peoples in parts of North America. This is an entirely separate topic. We cannot possibly do justice to it in a couple of sentences in this episode. There's an episode in the archive, but it's from prior hosts and it's only 12 minutes long. This was a movement that involved religion and spirituality. And as its name suggests, there was ritual dancing involved. One of the prophecies associated with this involved the idea of like the end of the white person. It had a lot of influences of both indigenous culture and religion and also the other 19th
46:45 Tracy V. Wilson? century spiritual and religious movements that were going on. They all came together. Sarah and her brother Natchez were not directly involved in the Ghost Dance movement, but they did know about it. It arose in northern Paiute bands in Nevada and it spread to other tribes and nations, including the Lakota. For various reasons, including that idea of an almost end of the world, ending of the white person, focus on some of the prophecy around this. The United States found this movement to be a threat. It was not the kind of threat the United States imagined it to be, but the government thought it was a threat and they deployed troops in response. And this ultimately led to the massacre at Wounded Knee on December 28th of 1890, in
47:29 Tracy V. Wilson? which US troops killed more than 250 Lakota.
47:33 Holly Frey? Sarah was afraid something similar might happen to her people. Since she could read English, she knew how the Ghost Dance movement and the massacre were being covered in white newspapers. And it was highly sensationalized. She also personally knew Colonel James W. Forsyth from the Bannock War. He was in command of the 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee. So she tried to warn people of the possible danger. And the response to her efforts was mixed. She faced hostility from white newspapers for daring to suggest that there was a possible threat. Some Paiute bands started keeping watch for army soldiers, but others thought that Sarah
48:14 Holly Frey? was just, once again, accommodating white society rather than standing with her own people.
48:21 Tracy V. Wilson? Less than a year after the Wounded Knee massacre on August 16th, 1891, Sarah Winnemucca died at her sister Elma's house at the age of 47. A lot of sources give her cause of death as tuberculosis contracted from her late husband. But most accounts of the last days of her life don't suggest that she was seriously ill as she would have been if she were dying of tuberculosis at that time. Biographer Sally Zaniani cites the work of Patricia Stewart in her exploration of whether Sarah may have been poisoned, either accidentally or intentionally.
49:04 Tracy V. Wilson? The coroner, Joe Sherwood, gave Sarah's cause of death as "too much choke cherry wine." That is also what he listed for Elma's late husband after he also died suddenly in 1899. Now, Sherwood did not have any medical training. He had no formal training to be a coroner. He was just kind of the guy who said he was the coroner. And it's possible that he just put too much choke cherry wine on people's death certificates when there was no obvious cause as to the cause of death. Or it is possible that there was something in the wine.
49:45 Holly Frey? Sarah Winnemucca was still well-known at the time of her death. The New York Times ran an obituary for her on October 27th, 1891, calling her "the Paiute princess" and describing her as "a remarkable woman."
50:00 Tracy V. Wilson? A historical marker for Sarah Winnemucca was placed at McDermott Indian Reservation in 1971. Fort McDermott was designated as an Indian agency after the military stopped its operations there in 1899, and it formally became a reservation in 1936. That was something that Sarah Winnemucca had been advocating for, but that formal designation didn't happen until after her death. Today, this is the home of the Fort McDermott Paiute and Shoshone Tribe. There are other Northern Paiute tribes and bands still today and other reservations for the Northern Paiute in addition to Fort McDermott. And of course, also, not everyone who is Northern Paiute lives at a reservation.
50:46 Holly Frey? In 1993, Sarah Winnemucca was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. In 2005, the state of Nevada gave a statue of her to the National Statuary Hall Collection at the Capitol Building in Washington DC, which accepts two statues from each state. There was some controversy about this, as there are still people who consider her to be an assimilationist or even a traitor. Members of her family were involved in the statue's creation to make sure it looked like they thought she would have wanted. It was designed by Benjamin Victor, inspired by a photograph of her. She's wearing what would have been her stage dress with fringe that looks like it's blowing
51:28 Holly Frey? in the wind, and she is holding a book in one hand and a shellflower in the other.
51:34 Tracy V. Wilson? And that is Sarah Winnemucca, who I admire in a lot of ways. And I think there are some ways where she was ahead of her time and others that are more complicated, which I'm sure we will talk some more about on Friday. I also have some listener mail. This is from Karina, and I was a little alarmed by the subject line because the subject line says, "I think you might be stalking me." And I was like, "Oh, no, what have I done? There's nothing to be alarmed." Karina wrote, "Hi, Holly and Tracy. As an avid listener of the show for many years and a history lover, thank you for all you do in teaching me about historical events and figures from across the world that without you I would remain ignorant of.
52:17 Tracy V. Wilson? Despite the fact that I live in the UK, however, sometimes I find the topics you pick about UK history so accurately mirror my life and experiences that I have to ask, are you actually stalking me? I am, of course, joking. Your recent two-parter on the iconic Horace Walpole prompted me to write in, though, as in some ways, he has a big influence on my life. I'm very familiar with his beloved Gothic villa Strawberry Hill House. I actually went to St. Mary's University, which is adjacent to the house. They are literally neighbors, and spent three years living and studying there. It is just as splendid and quirky as you imagine." In fact, some of our lectures and meetings were held in a suite within Strawberry Hill House, which if you looked closely, featured elements from the Castle of Otranto, including
53:02 Tracy V. Wilson? a miniature helmet incorporated into the fireplace. We, of course, studied the Castle of Otranto as part of our Gothic literature course, and it was truly something special to be reading a novel in the same place it was written centuries before and to study Gothic literature at the very birthplace of the genre. The house has had a renovation in recent years and is still open to visitors, just as it was in Walpole's time. It is only around 35 minutes on the train from central London. The station is even called Strawberry Hill and is totally worth a visit if you are ever in the UK. I'm afraid I don't have any pictures to share for the pet tax. Karina goes on to talk about living in a place surrounded by deer, pheasants, rabbits,
53:45 Tracy V. Wilson? squirrels, horses, and farm animals. Below is a picture of the autumnal view from our patio door. I also have an adorable toddler who keeps me busy and enjoys listening to your podcast with me on long car rides. She sometimes falls asleep while listening, but don't take it personally. Anyway, thanks for all you do. You both help keep history alive. Lots of love, Karina. I love all of this about having your college classes Dreamy. at Strawberry Hill House. Dreamy. And I love this view off of the back patio of the house, looking out at a woodland that looks like it happened maybe in the late fall, early winter. A lot of the trees
54:29 Tracy V. Wilson? don't have their foliage anymore. And I will also say, if you want to send pictures of deer, pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, horses, and farm animals, that is also great. I took a little trip to the Delaware River Valley area of New York a couple months ago, and boy, did I take so many pictures of deer because they were everywhere. So, thank you so much for this email. If you'd like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we're at [email protected] . And you can subscribe to our show on the iHeart Radio app or wherever else you like to get your podcasts.
55:17 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
55:31 Tracy V. Wilson? Deanna Flores is a flag football star, a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, and now host of a new podcast.
55:37 Holly Frey? In Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture to find the whole person behind the public identity.
55:45 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, you'll get to know Deanna, her guests, and even yourself a little better. No lectures, no know-it-all hosts, just real people being real.
55:53 Holly Frey? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores, out now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico.
56:02 Tracy V. Wilson? You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right, just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.
56:35 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
57:06 Tracy V. Wilson? Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five- and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
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