What really strikes me in Powell's text "Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins: Her Wrongs and Claims" was her incredible success in trickster discourse and the possible sacrifices that she made in order to wield the power she did. After all, her position as a mediator between her tribe and the white people made her valuable to the white people. Her knowledge of white people's rhetoric made the white people valuable to her and her cause. Her position, while potentially helpful to her tribe, actually cost her most. Her dealings with the dishonesty of the white men lost her more trust with her tribe despite her fighting for her tribe.
This dichotomy interests me. On one hand, Winnemucca has mastered the dominant rhetoric and uses it successfully to fight against it. On the other hand, her mastery of this rhetoric alienates her from her tribe, while her otherness both isolates her from whites, even as it is her only way into their world. Yet, despite the separateness that must now follow her, she gains the power and support she asks for by being exactly what she is: a Native American and a women.
This particular demographic at the time was probably the most oppressed, and yet she was able to manipulate the position she had in society extremely effectively. Of course, where the oppressed gain power, someone inevitably tries to discount them. The same is true for Winnemucca, where some of the powerful, dominant, white men attempted to slander Winnemucca for not being "woman" enough. Thankfully, the slander did not work, as Winnemucca handled the accusations beautifully, and instead, it had the opposite effect, making her more popular.
Winnemucca was able to succeed in her goals, having so much influence, she partially shaped the way Senator Dawes wrote the Dawes Act. She is proof that even the most oppressed can hold power and even the most dominant and powerful people are only so if people are willing to listen to them.
Your post about how Winnemucca mastered the dominant rhetoric and used it to her advantage interested me, and I cannot do anything but compare her to Queen Lili’oukalani and her similar struggle against the white oppressors. Unlike Queen Lili’oukalani, Winnemucca was not able to, or could not, use Indian/Native American rhetoric to appeal further to her own people. In not doing so, like you said, she lost some of support among the people she was trying to defend. However, in doing so, she also gained support among white people in higher positions of power, which in my opinion is more valuable in the long run, as it was the white people who had biggest chance of helping her make a change. Lili’oukalani ultimately failed in her attempt to persuade the whites to understand through sympathy and logic, partly because she didn’t have enough support among that particular demographic. I might be wrong, but I really see Winnemuccas logic in trying to play ball with the”enemy” to gain trust among their ranks. She found allies that could sympathize with her position, because they could relate to her in some way or another. Mary Peabody Mann for example, was a woman, and considering, like you said, how oppressed Winnemuccas demographic was, it is no wonder that just being a fellow woman was enough to relate to her.
ReplyDeleteHeather-
ReplyDeleteI also found it striking to consider the sacrifices Winnemucca made by engaging in white society. We have talked about the trickster figure several times in class, usually recognizing how this figure is an outcast in society. I think in class this is usually applied to Indians as a whole, however in Winnemucca's case, she was a kind of outcast in white society as well as within her own tribe. Her people berated her, saying she sold them to the white man by telling lies (Powell, 82). Whites tried to discredit her, like in Rinehart's report and as you mention, for not being "woman" enough. Essentially, Winnemucca sacrifices a sense of belonging by adopting the trickster figure. It is up to interpretation whether or not this sacrifice was worth it.