Columnist Susan Snyder: Winnemucca decision a winner

Friday, June 22, 2001 | 8:46 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Well, it's about time Nevada was first in something good.

With the stroke of his pen Thursday, Gov. Kenny Guinn sent Sarah Winnemucca -- or rather, her statue -- to Washington, D.C., to represent the Silver State in National Statuary Hall.

It's not a first for women. The likenesses of six others already stand there. But it is a first for American Indian women.

Winnemucca was born "somewhere near 1844," according to her autobiographical work, "Life Among the Piutes." She was Chief Winnemucca's daughter and Chief Truckee's granddaughter.

She was born on the cusp of an era that would forever alter the human landscape of the West. No whites had settled along the Humboldt River where she was born. In her book, believed to be the first written in English by an Indian woman, Winnemucca described their arrival:

"I was a very small child when the first white people came into our country. They came like a lion, yes, like a roaring lion, and have continued so ever since, and I have never forgotten their first coming."

Winnemucca spoke English, Spanish and three Indian languages by the time she was 14. She opened a school for Indian children and served as a Bureau of Indian Affairs interpreter. She also was a U.S. Army scout during its war with Idaho's Bannock tribe.

She lectured extensively hoping to assuage the fears and misconceptions about Indian people. And she traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1880 to tell President Rutherford B. Hayes about corruption among Indian agents.

She so abhorred the abuses her people suffered in the reservation system, she supported the General Allotment Act of 1887 that sought to end it. The act called for holding 138 million acres of land in trust for Indians for 20 years. It instead opened up vast areas to white settlement. About 60 percent of the land promised never materialized for the American Indians.

Winnemucca no doubt endured criticism from those she sought to protect and suffered the anguish of being misled by the whites whom she had trusted. But she persevered.

"She was controversial," said Carrie Porter, co-chair of the committee that led the charge for placing Winnemucca's statue alongside other significant Americans. "We're trying to stay away from that and keep it as positive as possible."

Understandable. Porter's group has the blessing of Nevada lawmakers but still needs to raise about $100,000.

But ignoring the controversy would be ignoring the woman. Winnemucca, who died of tuberculosis in 1891, spent her life trying to unite worlds destined to collide. It was the only way she could see of keeping her own culture alive.

She likely spent a lot of time in a lonely middle ground, assimilating into the dominant culture when she had to in order to gain its respect and negotiate on behalf of her people.

It was a momentous task -- especially for a woman at the time. Rifts still exist.

"I shall be beautiful while the earth lasts," Winnemucca wrote. "Somebody will always admire me; and who will come and be happy with me in the Spirit-land? I shall be beautiful forever there."

And now, forever here, too.