Sarah Winnemucca - Yakama Reservation

Yakama Reservation

Following the Bannock War, the Northern Paiute bands she was associated with were deemed untrustworthy and forced to march to the Yakama Indian Reservation (in Washington Territory), where they endured great deprivation. Sarah went there with them to serve as a translator, although as she had a job she was not required to live on a reservation. Due to their experiences there, she began to lecture on the plight of her people across California and Nevada. During the winter of 1879 and 1880, she and her father visited Washington and gained permission from Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz for the Paiutes to return to Malheur at their own expense. However, this promise went unfulfilled for years.

Knowing the temper of the people through whom they must pass, still smarting from the barbarities of the war two years previous, and that the Paiutes, utterly destitute of everything, must subsist themselves on their route by pillage, I refused permission for them to depart . . . and soon after, on being more correctly informed of the state of affairs, the Hon. Secretary revoked his permission though no determination as to their permanent location was arrived at. This was a great disappointment to the Paiutes and the greatest caution and care was necessary in dealing with them.

Report of Yakama Agent, James H. Wilbur

Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1881, p. 174 and 175.