Sara Winnemucca
Pauite Teacher, Lecturer, Scout, Interpreter
& Civil Rights Worker
Read several articles about her life, contribution & present day controversy.
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Split by ideologies in life, Nevadans now share hall
Geralda Miller RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 3/9/2005 For
more coverage and lots of pictures, go to rgj.com
With her right hand extended holding a shell flower
and the skirt of her native dress swaying, Sarah Winnemucca has found
her way back to Washington, D.C., which a former University of Nevada,
Reno history professor says has “delicious irony.”
The statue of Sarah Winnemucca, a 19th-century
Pauite who was a teacher, lecturer and a scout and interpreter for the
Army, will be dedicated today in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary
Hall.
The statue is the second to represent Nevada.
U.S. Sen. Patrick McCarran, who served four terms from March 4,
1933 until his death Sept. 28, 1954, was honored with the first statue
in 1960.
There are great polarities between Winnemucca and
McCarran.
While Winnemucca, the first American Indian woman to
write her autobiography, was fighting for the rights of her people,
McCarran fought a long fight to take land from her tribe.
“He tended to demean Native Americans,” said Jerome
Edwards, professor emeritus of history at UNR. “He thought of Native
Americans as second-class citizens.”
State archivist Guy Rocha said McCarran was a very
powerful senator who channeled a lot of money to Nevada. And with the
threats of the Cold War, he was very popular.
“There still would be a very vocal neo-conservative
position of this country that would say he was a hero and still is a
hero,” Rocha said. “McCarran had people who worshipped him. He
represented conservative American values.”
Winnemucca, whose name as a child was Thocmetony,
opened a bilingual school in Lovelock and lectured for peace and equal
rights across the country. During the Bannock War, she served as a
scout, guide and interpreter for the Army.
“And she did all these things she did on her own,”
said Sally Zanjani, who wrote the biography “Sarah Winnemucca.”
“I can’t think of anyone who compares to Sarah
Winnemucca, certainly no Indian woman.”
As spokeswoman for the Paiute band called the
Kuyuidika-a that inhabited around Pyramid Lake, Winnemucca traveled to
Washington, D.C., in 1880 and met with President Rutherford Hayes and
Interior Secretary Carl Schurz.
“What she wanted was peace between the races,”
Edwards said of Winnemucca’s dialogue that was often misunderstood by
both whites and American Indians.
Winnemucca married two white men, Zanjani wrote.
Edwards said: “Whites thought she (Winnemucca) was
too native and Native Americans thought she was too white.”
Zanjani said that “Winnemucca did not lose heart
and hope.”
“I think that Sarah Winnemucca is someone who
without any doubt that we can be proud of. Unfortunately the same cannot
be said for Sen. Pat McCarran. I think it’s great that Nevada has
someone like Sarah Winnemucca to counterbalance him.”
A.J. Liebling, in his book “A Reporter at Large:
Dateline: Pyramid Lake, Nevada” detailed McCarran’s personal attempt to
protect five Italian immigrant families that claimed some of the best
agricultural land at Pyramid Lake.
Michael J. Ybarra devotes a chapter to this
endeavor in his recently published biography, “Washington Gone Crazy,
Senator Pat McCarran and the Great American Communist Hunt.”
Rocha said McCarran believed the American Indian
was the loser to pioneers who fulfilled their quest of manifest destiny,
the concept of expansion and land acquisition in the United States.
“His point of view was the Indians should be
grateful for what they got as a conquered people,” Rocha said. ” And he
had a lot of supporters.”
McCarran understood the Italian immigrants because
his father was an Irish immigrant who built a homestead ranch in 1862
alongside the Truckee River.
From 1937 to 1954, McCarran introduced a bill on
the first day of each new legislative session to “give the disputed land
to the squatters for a small fee,” Ybarra said in his book of the nine
bills. “And as long as legislation was pending, the Justice Department
could not evict the families.”
McCarran also was a close associate of U.S. Sen.
Joseph McCarthy, who Edwards said was “ruthless” in his methods of
dealing with alleged Communists. However, McCarran, an
ultra-conservative Democrat, was a powerful advocate for Nevada, Edwards
said.
While Winnemucca’s historical reputation has
“resurrected,” Edwards said, McCarran’s standing has declined in the
past 50 years.
“She was a woman of great stature, and I think
Nevadans should be proud she is in Statuary Hall,” he said. “I’m not
saying that the Pat McCarran statue should be hauled down, but it is
deliciously ironic.”
******************************************************
Statue honors Paiute woman who led
fight for equal rights
Geralda Miller RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 3/9/2005
Dorothy Ely says she is afraid of the airplane ride
to Washington, D.C., but still could not miss seeing the statue of her
great-aunt, Sarah Winnemucca, placed in National Statuary Hall.
“I think it’s great and I want to be there,” said
Ely, 69. “It’s very moving.”
She is not alone.
Many, including 26-year-old sculptor Benjamin Victor, are excited
that the effort to make Winnemucca the second statue from Nevada to sit
in the Capitol is almost accomplished.
Today, there will be a dedication of a statue
depicting Sarah, the daughter of Chief Winnemucca, who fought for equal
rights for her people.
“I can’t wait,” said Victor, of Aberdeen, S.D.
“I’ve never even been to D.C. and to go for something like this — I’m a
bit star struck.”
A year out of college, Victor’s first commission
will be alongside works by the master sculptors he studied. He says he
feels like the kid who dreams of meeting basketball great Michael Jordan
and finally gets to look up at him in awe.
“It’s your greatest feeling,” he said. “The piece
itself is more deserving than I am.”
Carrie Townley Porter, who proposed the idea to the
Nevada Women’s History Project five years ago and was part of the
selection committee, said Nevadans will be proud when they travel east
and see Winnemucca.
“Putting Sarah back in Washington to be a light for
Americans will be the greatest history accomplishment of my life,” she
said.
The endeavor, from drafting the bill and getting it
passed by the state Legislature to raising the necessary funds, was not
easy, she said.
“We worked hard to get the bill passed and we did,”
Porter said.
Former Assemblywoman Marcia de Braga sponsored the
bill, which was signed by Gov. Kenny Guinn on May 29, 2001.
Initially, $100,000 was attached to the bill to pay
for the statue.
“However, that year there was a tight budget,” de
Braga said. “So I removed the money. I just wanted the bill regardless
and hoped we could find a way to raise the money.”
There were some who questioned why Winnemucca was
chosen, instead of another political figure.
“It was hard to argue the fact that Sarah
Winnemucca accomplished so much,” de Braga said. “She was picked not as
a Native American but because she was Nevada’s first public woman.”
Winnemucca lectured to whites at home and across
the country seeking justice for the Paiute people. In 1880, she met with
President Rutherford B. Hayes and other officials in Washington, D.C.,
about the poor conditions of her people.
“Sarah’s weapon was her eloquent tongue,” said
Sally Zanjani in her biography “Sarah Winnemucca.”
With the bill passed, the next challenge was to
raise money. There never should have been opposition to the statue but
there was, De Braga said.
“There was some controversy among Native
Americans,” she said.
The book says some people did not like the fact
that Winnemucca married white men and called her an “assimilationist.”
“Some see her as a “traitor” who sold out her
people during the Bannock War and even cost Paiute lives,” Zanjani said
in her book.
However, Zanjani said that conclusion did not hold
up.
And the controversy did not stop the Nevada Women’s
History Project from going around the state to raise money.
“We envisioned that this should be a citizens’
project, ” Porter said. “We wanted people to have a sense of ownership
in that statue that represents Nevada. That they helped put that statue
there.”
One of the first donations came from an elementary
school in Schurz, which Porter said held a read-a-thon and raised $26.
The Sarah Winnemucca Elementary School in Reno
collected $700, Porter said.
“And we were told the smallest donation was one
cent,” she said.
Then Nevada first lady Dema Guinn, who was part of
the selection committee, stepped in and helped raised money not only for
the statue in Washington but enough to have a full-size statue in Carson
City.
“I did go after some people that I encouraged to
give some money,” Guinn said. “This is such an important thing. This is
about history. This is about what Nevada is all about.”
Winnemucca is the fourth woman to be placed in the
hall, which Guinn said makes this an extra-special honor for Nevada.
“We had strong women and she was one of them,”
Guinn said. “Her drive and dedication to me, I just marvel at that.”
She said she also marveled at Victor’s ability to
capture the essence of Winnemucca.
“I think people will walk in and their eye will go
straight to Sarah,” Guinn said.
Victor agrees.
The proclaimed perfectionist, who spent almost four months at a
foundry in Colorado with his statue making sure every step of the
process went flawlessly, proudly says Winnemucca will stand out from
every other statue in the hall.
He was there bending the fringes on the bottom of
her dress to look windswept. Even the warm-brown patina finish had to
hit the light just so.
Victor, who will be the hall’s youngest sculptor,
says the other statues are static.
“Sarah is in motion. And that will set her apart
from every sculpture in the hall,” he said. “I think everyone when they
see it is going to be surprised and happy with it.”
The statue of Winnemucca had to be in motion to
depict her life as an activist and the enthusiasm she had, Victor said.
The irony is that Winnemucca now will stand
permanently where she begged for, but was denied, help for her Pyramid
Lake tribe.
“She believed she was a failure when she died,”
Victor said. “She died believing she had failed in her causes. Here we
are 100 years later realizing she is their equal.”
Although it will be sad to say goodbye to the woman
he has spent the past year with, Victor says he wouldn’t want to keep
her.
“She needs to be out there in D.C. where she always
traveled,” he said. “She was there in her lifetime trying to make a
difference. And she will be making a difference forever in the Capitol.
That’s pretty cool.”
**************************************
Sarah Winnemucca statue installed today in D.C.
DAVID C.
HENLEY Lahontan Valley News
March 9, 2005
Four years of hard work on the part of former
Fallon Assemblywoman Marcia de Braga will come to fruition today when a
statue of 19th century Native American Nevada leader Sarah Winnemucca is
installed in the U.S. Capitol Building.
"It's wonderful news that all of our efforts to
have Sarah Winnemucca's statue erected in Washington have finally paid
off," said de Braga, who sponsored the 1991 bill in the Nevada
Legislature authorizing the selection of the noted Native American's
statue to be erected in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.
Following the approval by the Legislature and
governor four years ago, a selection committee was organized to locate
and commission a sculptor to craft the statue, she said.
After interviewing many candidates, the committee
chose Benjamin Victor for the assignment.
He designed and sculpted in bronze the six-foot
statue of Winnemucca which will be unveiled and installed today in
Statuary Hall which, since 1960, has housed the statue of Patrick
McCarran, a Nevada U.S. senator from 1930 until his death in 1954 in
Hawthorne while delivering a political address at the El Capitan Club.
Each state is allowed two statues in the U.S.
Capitol building, and for many years there had been conjecture as to
whom the second statue would represent until de Braga proposed the Sarah
Winnemucca legislation. Following the Legislature's approval for the
Winnemucca statue, several Nevada organizations spearheaded efforts to
raise funds for the statue, as the Legislature appropriated no money.
Led by the Nevada Women's History Project,
approximately $200,000 was raised to pay Victor, de Braga said.
"Sarah Winnemucca was my choice for the statue
because she was Nevada's first public woman, a Paiute who founded
schools, wrote books, and traveled to Washington on many occasions to
successfully lobby Congress on behalf of her people," de Braga added.
The ceremony today, which will be held at noon
Washington, D.C. time, will be covered by C-SPAN and will be attended by
all five Nevada congressional representatives, leaders of the U.S.
Senate and House of Representatives, and Winnemucca's great-grandniece,
Louise Tannheimer, 86, of Portola, Calif.
Tannheimer was chosen to represent the Winnemucca
family and the Paiute tribe because Winnemucca, although she was married
three times, had no children.
Although Winnemucca (1844-1891) had been raised to
fear white people, she was self-educated and learned English, Spanish
and three Native American dialects after traveling throughout the West
with her grandfather, Chief Truckee, who assisted Gen. John C. Fremont
in freeing California from Spanish rule, and her father, Chief
Winnemucca, who also joined white politicians and military figures to
seek peaceful solutions to white and Native American disputes.
Statuary Hall, which since 1864 has housed marble
and bronze figures representing leading figures from the nation's
states, will contain 98 statues with the installation of Winnemucca's
statue today.
Only New Mexico and Wyoming lack two statues. The
most recent statue to be placed in Statuary Hall is that of Sacagawea,
representing North Dakota, a Shoshone who was the interpreter for the
Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean in 1804 and 1805.
She also served as the expedition's guide and has
been honored by having a river, peak, mountain pass, and monuments in
North Dakota, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho named for her.
With the inclusion of the Sacagawea and Winnemucca
statues, eight women will now be represented in once all-male dominated
Statuary Hall.
When Nevada's Sen. McCarran statue was unveiled,
and dedicated on March 23, 1960, speakers at the ceremony included
Cardinal Francis Spellman, Nevada senators Alan Bible and Howard Cannon,
the state's sole Representative Walter Baring, Gov. Grant Sawyer, Lt.
Gov. Rex Bell, Senate Majority Leader (and future, president) Lyndon
Johnson, and Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen.
Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate's minority
leader, said Sarah Winnemucca's statue "will be a welcome sight and I am
proud that she will represent our state in the U.S. Capitol's National
Statuary Hall Collection."
Nevada Sen. John Ensign stated, "Sarah Winnemucca
was a tireless advocate for Native Americans, a dedicated teacher, and a
noted author and educator."
Former Assemblywoman de Braga said that Winnemucca
had traveled the state seeking justice and education for Native
Americans, including visits to Churchill and Pershing counties, and
established a school for Indian children in Lovelock.
De Braga stated that in 1991, when her bill passed
the Assembly and the Senate authorizing the statue of Winnemucca be
approved, the Native American leader's great-grandniece Louise
Tannheimer who will attend the Washington ceremony today, was present at
the State Capital in Carson City.
De Braga said Tannheimer told her following the
approving legislation that a "good omen" that day had occurred just
before the final vote had been taken.
"Louis told me that as she was entering the Capitol
Building, she saw an eagle feather lying near its entrance," de Braga
remembers. "That feather will bring us good fortune today," de Braga
recalls Louise Tannheimer telling her at the time.
Today, 45 years after the installation of Sen.
McCarran's statue as the first to represent the state of Nevada in
Statuary Hall, de Braga agrees with Tannheimer's prediction. "Yes, it
was a very good omen," de Braga said Tuesday.