“Oh, for shame… Yes, you, who call yourselves the great civilization… your so-called civilization sweeps inland from the ocean wave; but, oh, my God! leaving its pathway marked by crimson lines of blood; and strewed by the bones of two races, the inheritor and the invader; and I am crying out to you for justice…”

Life Among the Piutes is the first known autobiography of a Native American woman.

Compelling and, at times, heartbreaking, Sarah Winnemuca Hopkins’ memoir is both a history of the Piute Indian tribe and an account of the devastation caused to the Piute people after their first contact with white men in the nineteenth century.

Born in 1841, Winnemucca was the granddaughter of Piute chief, Truckee, an early advocate of co-operation between the Indians and European-Americans.

As a result of her grandfather’s relationship with the white authorities in Nevada, Sarah became one of the few Piutes could speak and write English fluently, ensuring she became interpreter between the two groups.

Her unique position allowed her to promote the welfare of the Native American people and protest against their oftentimes shocking treatments at the hands of white people.

Life Among the Piutes is a chronicle of these struggles and the indignities faced by the Piute people. The book also captures the beautiful simplicity of Piute life and is an integral part of Native American history.

“For students of Western American history, this book is invaluable. Rarely do we have firsthand accounts of events of such importance; even more rarely are these accounts written by Native Americans who participated in them; and, still rarer are the accounts written by Native American women.” — Journal of the West

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (1844-1891) was a prominent female Piute activist and educator; she helped gain release of her people from the Yakima Reservation following the Bannock War of 1878, lectured widely in the East in 1883 on injustices against Native Americans in the West, established a private school for Indian students in Nevada, and was an influential figure in development of United States' 19th-century Indian policies. She died in 1891.