Life Among The Piutes By Sarah Winnemucca Analysis

The following is from Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Winnemucca wrote her book Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims in 1882. Winnemucca wrote this book to help highlight stories of her people and the interactions they had with white European and American settlers. Winnemucca hoped her writings would have the desired outcome of forcing change and getting public opinion and government officials on the sides of Native American tribes.
Winnemucca portrayed cross-cultural interaction as inevitable. Nevertheless early interactions with white settlers and pioneers set the tone for all the following years of Winnemucca’s life. Personally however Winnemucca feared interactions with the white people in her youth.. During early interaction Winnemucca …show more content…
Soon again Winnemucca’s grandfather left again for California and left his son in charge of the tribe. It was then that a group of settlers came and could not get over the mountain pass so they stayed with the tribe on the Carson River. During this winter some conflicts must have arrived as Winnemucca mentions; “You call my people bloodseeking. My people did not seek to kill them, nor did they steal their horses”.2 In fact during the winter Winnemucca says her people helped the settlers survive, they gave them food and shelter. So again what was beneficial to the settlers turned into heartache and trouble for Winnemucca’s …show more content…
Scott. After being left in the care of Mr. Scott and his associates who her grandfather trusted and said were safe to be with. Winnemucca again began to fear interactions with the white men. These men would come in the night and ask for her sister. These men were so insistent that Winnemucca and her sister would hide in the woods until dawn. Her family came to fear being left under the watchful eye of the white men. Winnemucca’s family crying "Oh, why did we come? Oh, we shall surely all be killed some