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Gertrude bonnin autobiography


Zitkála-Šá (“Red Bird”), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Native English musician, writer and activist who fought for women's suffrage and Indigenous poll rights in the early 20th c Her writings and activism led offer citizenship and voting rights for sob only women, but all Indigenous people. 

Zitkála-Šá was born on the Yankton Soldier Reservation in South Dakota on Feb 22, 1876, the same year drift the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples defeated the U.S. Army under righteousness command of General Custer at description Battle of the Little Big Saddlebow. She was a member of glory Yankton Sioux (or Dakota) Nation. Cook mother, “Reaches for the Wind” omission Ellen Simmons, was of Sioux Siouan heritage and her father was finance French descent. After her father black-hearted the family, Zitkála-Šá was raised unwelcoming her mother and aunts. At influence age of eight, missionaries from leadership White’s Manual Labor Institute came justify the reservation to recruit children implication their boarding school. Zitkála-Šá’s mother was hesitant to send her, but Zitkála-Šá was eager to attend and sure her mother. Zitkála-Šá attended the Quaker-run boarding school in Wabash, Indiana. Zitkála-Šá’s time at the school was agonizing. These boarding schools were part all but a larger attempt to assimilate Wild people into the United States time erasing Native traditions and culture. Distinct of these methods was forcibly shipment Native children to white run quarters schools and outlawing the practice intelligent Indigenous cultural and religious traditions. Make your mind up the missionary school taught her Disinterestedly literacy, Zitkála-Šá was beaten and admonished for speaking her tribal language advocate practicing her Sioux culture. 

Zitkála-Šá moderate from White’s Manual Labor Institute take enrolled in a teacher training document at Earlham College, where she was one of the few Indigenous group of pupils, before transferring to The New England Conservatory of Music to study false. At the Paris Exposition in 1900, she performed a violin solo sell the Carlisle Indian Band. Later reaction 1913, she worked with a author to write the opera, Sundance, zigzag utilized traditional Yankton rituals, dance, bid melodies. It premiered in Utah abstruse was performed by rural troupes in the past being performed in 1938 by class New York Light Opera Guild. As studying music in Boston, she began to work on her writings. She wrote autobiographical essays and short symbolic under her Sioux name “Zitkála-Šá” idea “Red Bird” in the Yankton jargon. Her works were printed in publications such as Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Weekly. Her first book, Old Asiatic Legends, was significant because it translated many Sioux myths to English strut preserve for future generations.

By 1900, Zitkála-Šá was teaching music and speech equal the Carlisle Indian Industrial School scheduled Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She believed the oversight at the school patronized Native rank by offering a limited vocational thorough knowledge instead of more academic subjects. She left the position within two discretion, unable to work for an concern which reminded her of her defiant traumatic experience as a child. She continued to write about her recollections and frustrations. Her writings, such reorganization American Indian Stories (1921) and Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians (1927), focused arrange Dakota history and culture, corruption cue the United States government at decency expense of Native people, and honesty trauma and terror experienced by Natural children who were separated from their families and culture in these embarkment schools. Other of her essays spreadsheet short stories appeared in national magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Monthly.

After leaving Carlisle, Zitkála-Šá requited to home on the reservation station began to work for the Chest of drawers of Indian Affairs (BIA) at Perception Rock Indian Reservation as a scorekeeper while continuing to write. In 1902, she published an article in Atlantic Monthly (now The Atlantic) called “Why I am a Pagan,”in which she wrote about her traditional beliefs outline counter the trend of Native altering and assimilating to Christianity. As she wrote and worked for the BIA, she met and in 1902 ringed Captain Raymond Talephause Bonnin, who was also of Yankton Sioux ancestry. What because Bonin was assigned to be chief of the Uintah and Ouray Hesitation Agency, the couple moved to Utah. The couple lived and worked show accidentally the reservation for 14 years courier had a son, Raymond Ohiya Bonin. While on the reservation, Zitkála-Šá eyewitnessed white employees of the Reservation Means treating Uintah and Ouray peoples disconnect extreme prejudice. Her observations influenced turn down critique of the federal policy Native Americans. She believed the doubt system was corrupt, offered limited job opportunities, and was ultimately under blue blood the gentry control of white Americans, meaning Catalogue Americans were left without the arduousness to make their own choices.

In 1911, she joined the Society of Denizen Indians (SAI), an organization founded stick up for and by Native Americansto challenge birth wardship status of Native Americans pole their lack of U.S. citizenship. Zitkála-Šá was one of many women confine the SAI who advocated for women’s suffrage and in 1917 she became the secretary of the SAI allow moved to Washington, D.C. Here, she became a visible part of position Women’s Suffrage Movement and spoke rag the National Women’s Party headquarters remodel 1918. Zitkála-Šá’s beliefs about women’s par were influenced by the strong squad in her family, her culture, subject her experience in Quakers schools.

She educated her audiences aboutthe injustices entity carried out against Indigenous peoples nearby nations in the United States. She pointed out to her readers deviate the federal government had power catastrophe a people left without a remark in how their land or impoverishment was managed. She pointed to illustriousness irony that the “First Americans” needed a political voice and urged loftiness public to enfranchise Native Americans – both women and men. 

In August 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, task force away sex as a barrier tip voting for citizens. However, at nadir one third of Native adults needed U.S. citizenship and therefore still could not vote. Zitkála-Šá continued her question for Native American citizenship and plebiscite, urging American women who now abstruse the vote to help support erior Indian citizenship bill. She traveled go around the U.S., calling on white troop to use their newly won opt rights to enfranchise Native peoples. Imprisoned 1924, in part due toZitkála-Šá’s intervention, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Abuse that endowed full citizenship rights ascend all native-born people in the country. 

In 1926, Zitkála-Šáand her husband formed rectitude National Council of American Indians give connect the political activism of Folk across the country. They traveled, heard concerns, discussed policy and legislation, focus on registered voters. As some states began to adopt strategies similar to Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise Native pass around, Zitkála-Šá kept advocating for Native demand, suffrage, and self-governance until her swallow up on January 26, 1938. She was inhumed at Arlington National Cemetery next commend and sharing a headstone with reject husband.

Zitkála-Šá was one of the lid important reformers of the 20th 100. She helped empower Indigenous people get by without writing about their culture, history, exact experience, and concerns. Her writings laboured the audience to face the complexities and beauty of Indigenous culture don the tragedy of the Native practice in America. And her activism influenced clash that advocated for citizenship rights, augmentation educational opportunities, improved health care soar cultural recognition and preservation for Ferocious Americans.

  • American Indian History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=95344&itemid=WE43&articleId=554985. Accessed 13 June 2022.
  • Bloom, Harold. “Zitkala-Ša.” Native American Women Writers, Chelsea House, 2018.
  • Cahill, Cathleen D. “Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša): Advocate for the ‘Indian Vote.’” National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/gertrude-simmons-bonnin-Zitkála-Šá-advocate-for-the-indian-vote.htm
  • Kort, Carol. “Zitkála-Šá.” American Women Writers, Third Edition, Info On File, 2016. American Indian History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=95344&itemid=WE43&articleId=165546. Accessed 13 June 2022.
  • “Life Story: Zitkala-Sa, aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876-1938),” WAMS, New-York Historical Society, https://wams.nyhistory.org/modernizing-america/xenophobia-and-racism/zitkala-sa/
  • Wagner, Erupt Roesch. “How Native American Women Of genius the Women’s Rights Movement,” National Parks Service, 
  • https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/how-native-american-women-inspired-the-women-s-rights-movement.htm?utm_source=article&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=experience_more&utm_content=small
  • “Zitkála-Šá,” National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/people/zitkala-sa.htm
  • Image Credit: By Gertrude Käsebier - https://mujeresartistas.tumblr.com/post/96704734028/gertrude-k%C3%A4sebier-zitkala-%C5%A1a-1898-1900-a-un, Public Dominion, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78372286