Presentation Abstract

Student's Name: Lily Grande '26

Co-registrant Names:

Type of Presentation: Research Paper

Presentation Title: "Indigenous Women’s Activism in the West, mid-19th Century-early 20th Century"

Abstract:

Sacagawea is remembered as a prominent Native activist in American history, but Christine Quintasket (Mourning Dove), Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte and Sarah Winnemucca also merit attention for their resistance against American racism, military confrontation, and cultural oppression. Their protests publicly challenged these conditions in significant ways, as my presentation and poster will demonstrate.

Primary sources authored by the women offer personal insight into their struggle. Their writings advocated for the Paiutes, Omaha, and Okanogan tribes. Secondary sources support and clarify how the women are remembered today. These sources reveal the authentic and personal history of these women’s lives. Building on Sacagawea’s legacy, these women broke gender and racial barriers to try and save their people and cultures from pressures of forced assimilation and social and economic dislocation. Sarah Winnemucca, Dr. La Flesche Picotte and Mourning Dove have earned recognition for their historic accomplishments. They challenged contemporary ethnic stereotyping of Native peoples and American efforts to destroy both Indigenous cultures and the aspiration that Indigenous peoples could be legally accepted as equal to Euro-American settler- populations. These women’s lives allow us to better understand the historic experiences of Native communities as crucial contributors to American history in general.

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