"She is one of the best representations of the educated Indian": Zitkála-Šá and her Early Years
Zitkála-Šá (February 22, 1876 – January 26, 1938) was an extraordinary woman of many things and many names. She was a Yankton Dakota adorned with the Indigenous name Zitkála-Šá which translates to "Red Bird." Zitkála-Šá was a writer, editor, translator, musician, educator, and political activist in her lifetime.
As she dove into the secular, political world she became well known by her anglicized and married name, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin. Even so, she never gave up her culture and became a strong advocate for Indigenous civil rights and citizenship.
Apart from her work in activism, Zitkála-Šá is best known for her success as an Indigenous writer. Her first publication, Old Indian Legends (1901), is a collection of traditional Indigenous stories, including some from her childhood. This book helped to preserve orations from Dakota tribes and various others, and through its success, Zitkála-Šá gained recognition and respect in the Western world.
Her next book, American Indian Stories (1921), is an autobiography that documents her life growing up on the Yankton Reservation through allegorical fiction and personal essays. The book chronicles the hardships Zitkála-Šá and other Indigenous people faced during the 1900s. Many Indigenous people were forced to assimilate into American culture and faced obligatory enrollment in missionary and manual labor schools.
Even so, Indigenous people were not formally recognized as American citizens, a theme Zitkála-Šá carried throughout her work.
Zitkála-Šá's mother, Thaté Iyóhiwiŋ also known as Ellen Simmons, had a substantial influence on both her life and her writing. Much like Zitkála-Šá in her older years, her mother was a great orator. According to the Kalamazoo Morning Gazette, Thaté Iyóhiwiŋ was "famous among her people as a reciter of legends and tales."
The community often gathered in her wigwam to hear tales and legends of the Dakota. Zitkála-Šá recalls her mother frequently throughout her writing. She was a strong, stoic woman but "Often the mother's eyes would darken and her face draw into hard lines of sorrow."
From time to time, her anguish was revealed to Zitkála-Šá when she could no longer contain her sadness the Dakota land was being intruded upon by the white man. Thaté Iyóhiwiŋ could not contain her anguish when she thought about their lands being overtaken.
Her mother vehemently distrusted the "white man." When Quaker missionaries came to the Yankton Reservation, she knew better than to trust the "palefaces" and she taught Zitkála-Šá to not trust them either. Nevertheless, against her mother's wishes, Zitkála-Šá left to pursue an American education with Quaker missionaries at only eight years old. This decision shaped the trajectory of Zitkála-Šá's life.
Zitkála-Šá wrote frequently about education and shared her experiences with missionaries and the American education system in her article "Impressions of an Indian Childhood." She recalls her experience leaving the reservation saying:
Soon we were being drawn rapidly away by the white man's horses. When I saw the lonely figure of my mother vanish in the distance a sense of regret settled heavily upon me. I felt suddenly weak, as if I might fall limp to the ground. I was in the hands of strangers whom my mother did not fully trust. I no longer felt free to be myself, or to voice my own feelings. The tears trickled down my cheeks and I buried my face in the folds of my blanket.
When she arrived at the Quaker Institute, Zitkála-Šá immediately felt like she was in a foreign land. According to Zitkála-Šá's account in the Boston Sunday Journal, the missionaries cut off her long braids and banned juvenile activities and games.
One day, Zitkála-Šá and her school friends were caught playing in the snow. After being lectured, one of the girls spoke out of line and uttered "no" to a teacher. Backtalk was unacceptable and the girl "received a sound spanking for its utterance." (Boston Journal) School officials attempted to teach obedience through constant scolding and spankings.
After three years with the missionary school, Zitkála-Šá returned to the reservation as an educated American. She stayed among the Yankton Dakota for four years, but she was seen as an outcast and a traitor for her time away.
The Boston Journal reiterates how she quickly realized "she had none of the old freedom of life. Her education had unfitted her for the life among her people."
At the age of fifteen, Zitkála-Šá chose to leave the Yankton Reservation to pursue a life among the American people. She eventually went on to attend Earlham College and quickly gained a reputation as an orator, following in the footsteps of her mother. While in college she faced hardship and discrimination due to her background:
In one contest the Indian girl was grossly insulted by a group of college men, who threw a white flag at her feet with a ‘ough hideous drawing of an Indian girl, and "squaw" printed beneath it.
The strain of college caused Zitkála-Šá to fall ill and with growing financial troubles, she was forced to leave Earlham College. However, she would not return to the reservation to face her past. Instead, she chose to study violin at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Upon graduation from the New England Conservatory of Music as a classically trained violinist, she was hired at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. She spent some time recruiting children for the school before returning to teach and play violin.
By 1900, Zitkála-Šá lived in Boston as a well-known musician.
The Philadelphia Inquirer recounted her journey with the Carlisle School Indian Band where she gained notoriety and even went to Paris for their international tour.
In 1901, Zitkála-Šá was dismissed from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School after releasing an article criticizing the school's harsh assimilation program and lack of substantial educational opportunities for Indigenous children.
At this point, she returned to the reservation to care for her aging mother. Though their relationship was strained due to Zitkála-Šá's decision to pursue an American education, Thaté Iyóhiwiŋ was the first to share tribal stories that would later be used in Zitkála-Šá's books.
In her lifetime, Zitkála-Šá was a woman of many talents, though her success was often only credited to her American education.
An article published by the Idaho Falls Times marked Zitkála-Šá as a "striking example of the wonders being accomplished through education in the Indian race." The article notes all her accomplishments - "a finished violinist, an elocutionist of more than ordinary ability, an author and a young lady of wide culture."
At the end of the day, Zitkála-Šá was all these things and more.
She was a proud Yankton Dakota woman who fought hard to ensure that Indigenous people would always be greater than their education and American influences. Through her activism, Zitkála-Šá helped pave the way for Indigenous citizenship all while proving that a person can overcome their hardships and still help others with nothing more than a pen and a voice.
Learn more about Early American Newspapers, 1690-1922 and explore the lives of extraordinary women like Zitkála-Šá.
