Sarah Winnemucca Goes to Washington: Rhetoric and Resistance in the Capital City

The complex, oft en troubled relationship between American Indians and whites has played out numerous times on the national stage of Washington, DC, not only in theaters that have showed performances like Pocahontas, or The Settlers of Virginia: A National Drama in 1836 but in the hosting of Native American delegations since the creation of the US. In January 1880 Northern Paiute activist Sarah Winnemucca accompanied her father, her brother Natches, an unidentified young relative, and the Washo leader known as Captain Jim to DC. Winnemucca's father had come to be known by whites as Chief Winnemucca, a reflection more of non- Natives' attempts to locate authority in a single figure rather than an accurate depiction of his stature among Northern Paiutes. At least since Sarah Winnemucca's grandfather, known as Truckee, had welcomed white settlers to the area, the family had enjoyed a certain political power in relation to white society.