72 Zitkala-Sa (1876-1938)
Abby Karlis; Kamryn Leavitt; Karley Whelchel; Jesse Beecher; and Shelby Smith
Introduction
Zitkala- Sa: what a woman. She was a member of the Sioux tribe in South Dakota, and throughout the course of her life, she made a number of incredible contributions to both her own culture and heritage, and that of the literary world. Zitkala-Sa, also known by the name, Gertrude Simmons Bonin, was a writer, musician, editor, teacher, and political activist. She took the struggles that she faced in her childhood and turned them into multiple pieces of writing. Her works allowed for the rest of the world to look through a window and see not only the hardships she had to face, but the hardships that so many others in her situation have had to go through in regard to preserving a culture that is being swallowed by a more dominant one. Let’s take a closer look at her life.
On February 22nd, 1876, Zitkala-Sa was born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her mother, Ellen Simmons, was a member of the Yankton Sioux tribe while her father was a German-American by the name of Felker. He abandoned the family very early on. For the first eight years of her life, Zitkala-Sa enjoyed life on the reservation. However, in 1884, missionaries came to the Yankton reservation and recruited her along with several other young children; taking them to White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute. This was a Quaker school that taught speaking, reading, and writing in English located in Wabash, Indiana.
She attended the school for three years before returning to the reservation in 1887. Zitkala- Sa later wrote about this experience in The School Days of an Indian Girl. When she returned to the reservation, she described feeling as if she no longer belonged to the Yankton traditions and thought that many of her people had already begun to conform to the dominant white culture. At age fifteen, Zitkala-Sa decided to head back to White’s Labor Institute. She excelled in school, even teaching music after the instructor retired. In June of 1885, she earned her diploma and gave a powerful speech on women’s inequality. Her education later continued at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. Here she gathered Native American legends and translated them from Latin to English for children to read. Unfortunately, due to ill health and financial problems, she had to leave the college six weeks before graduation in 1897. She bounced back pretty quickly because from 1897-1899, she continued her studies and played violin at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
Zitkala-Sa later got a job as a teacher at Carlisle School under the founder, Colonel Richard Henry Pratt. He sent her back to her Yankton Sioux reservation to recruit children. Zitkala-Sa did not agree with Colonel Pratt and his methods of instruction. The curriculum at Carlisle was ridged and forced the agenda of the dominant white culture with many limitations. In 1901, she was di