Savage Perils: Racial Frontiers and Nuclear Apocalypse in American Culture - Hardcover

Sharp, Patrick B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080613822X ISBN 13: 9780806138220

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007

Synopsis

Of the many Native American women who were torn between two cultures on the American frontier, three have captured the popular imagination: Pocahontas, Sacajawea, and Sarah Winnemucca. This is the first full-scale biography of Sarah, the daughter of a Northern Paiute chief in western Nevada.During her short but adventurous life between about 1844 and 1891–Sarah Winnemucca worked tirelessly for the physical welfare and education of the Paiutes and all Indians. During a childhood made traumatic by the influx of white settlers and miners, she learned English and Spanish and two Indian languages in addition to her own. Through her work as an interpreter and a scout she eventually became an important political figure among the Indians of her region and traveled to Washington as their representative. Beautiful and persuasive, she appeared as the "Princess" Sarah in theaters and churches, telling the white world about the Paiutes and their problems. Because of her friendship with two Boston intellectual women, Elizabeth Peabody and Mrs. Horace Mann, she was able to publish her autobiography, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, one of the first books by a Native American. Her eastern allies also helped her to fund the Peabody School for Indian children in her home state.Balancing those successes were many personal and public failures. It was impossible to feed and clothe the Paiutes on the promises of Washington politicians. The charm that won the hearts and minds of her audiences also provoked personal attacks and innuendos. Two of Sarah's three marriages ended in divorce; the less formal liaisons failed also.Historians have found it difficult to separate the truth from the fictions perpetuated by white critics and by Sarah herself. In preparing this biography, Gae Whitney Canfield relied on newspaper reports and interviews, the Peabody and Mann papers, and public documents, as well as Sarah Winnemucca's own account of her life. The result is an exciting history of an extraordinary individual, who was at once a traditional Indian woman and a liberated Indian activist.

About this title

Review

"The myth of automatic progress is the unthinking basic narrative told by the authors of all American history textbooks. Savage Perils shows how this storyline developed from Darwin, explains how it came to dwell in Cold War science fiction, illuminates how it reinforces Western racism, and warns us where it might take us next."--James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
"An important, insightful, and timely study."--Richard Slotkin, author of Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in the Twentieth Century

About the Author

Patrick B. Sharp is Assistant Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Liberal Studies at California State University, Los Angeles.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080613822X
• ISBN 13: 9780806138220
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288