SOURCE: "A Trip to the East," in Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes, University of Oklahoma Press, 1983, pp. 200-13.

In the following excerpt Canfield recounts the circumstances that led to the writing of Sarah Hopkins Winnemucca's autobiography, and the political views Winnemucca expressed in her numerous lectures.

Two influential Boston sisters were to be Sarah's mainstays for several years to come. First was Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, who, from the time when she first met Sarah and heard her impassioned plea for the Paiutes and other American Indians, continued faithfully to support her cause.

Outwardly Elizabeth was a chunky spinster, always dressed in the same black silk, but she had created an illustrious aura about herself from her associations with the Concord Transcendentalists, whose books she published. Her own learned lectures and writings on world history, plus her dynamic enthusiasm and support for the establishment of German kindergartens in...