10 at 10: The Surprising Childhoods of Ten Remarkable People
ZITKÁLA ŠA 1876 Zitkála Šá is born 1876 1938 Age 8 Attends White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute As a young girl Zitkála Šá spent her time leaping and bounding over rolling hills and past the rising smoke of her home on the reservation in Yankton South Dakota When she stopped the scene stopped When she jumped it jumped No matter how fast she ran she was a part of the land When she was eight years old Quaker missionaries visited to recruit Native children to the White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute in Wabash Indiana At first she was excited to go The white people promised to take her away on an iron horse a train to lands where she could eat big red apples and learn to read and write Her mother warned her Their words are sweet but my child their deeds are bitter Her mother had good reason to be distrusting Years earlier gold had been discovered in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory and prospectors took over lands belonging to Dakota Lakota and Northern Arapaho people During that same time period US leaders such as President Ulysses S. Grant encouraged killing bison as a way to eliminate Native Americans because they were dependent on the animals for meat clothing and utensils And Indigenous people were also being coerced into signing treaties forced onto reservations and required to adopt farming instead of hunting and gathering By the time missionaries arrived to take Zitkála Šá away the landscape where thirty million bison had roamed had been reduced to herds of just five hundred and the Yankton Western Dakota people had been forced to leave their ancestral lands as protectors of the Pipestone Quarry Her mother's warning proved correct When she arrived at her new school all the apple trees had died And so Zitkála Šá began her new life with new clothing a new language and a new name Gertrude She would Missionaries cut off her hair Age 11 Returns to the Yankton Reservation but feels like she has lost her culture 9
Age 14 Between 250 and 300 Lakota Indians die at the Wounded Knee Massacre Age 20 Wins second prize in the Indiana State Oratorical Contest Age 21 Studies violin at the New England Conservatory of Music later describe the school as an iron routine filled with the monotony of ringing bells and roll calls The white people who ran the schools considered Native people to be savage and their punishments were intended to erase the children's Native culture and language Those punishments were harsh and swift If children spoke in their native language instead of English they were forced to stand on tiptoes with arms outstretched for over an hour Other punishments were meant to embarrass If a child wet the bed they carried the bedroll with them all day Shortly after her arrival and fearing the eyes of the white women Zitkála Šá hid under the bed and listened to the sound of sharp footsteps coming closer and closer Suddenly rough hands pulled her from her hiding place She kicked and screamed and then felt the cold steel of a scissors against her neck Her long braids were chopped off one by one Zitkála Šá would later say that was the day she lost her spirit In her culture only cowards or mourners had their hair shorn Zitkála Šá was neither When Zitkála Šá was eleven years old she returned home but she was caught between two worlds her old life as a proud Dakota and her new life in the white world She felt she was neither a wild Indian nor a tame one Zitkála Šá lamented Like a slender tree I have been uprooted from my mother nature and God With her people being pushed out of their lands the roots she planted would have to be in the new world She returned to school and was lauded for her oratory skills and musical talents and as a perfect example of a reformed Indigenous person But the shadow of her lost heritage clung to her and she became determined to show that side to the world In one of her speeches Side by Side delivered at the age of twenty Zitkála Ša's stirring words showed the injustices of a cold race whose hearts were frozen hard with prejudice As an adult she fought for equal rights for her people and challenged the practices of American Indian boarding schools At the time Native Americans were denied American citizenship and could not vote Many lived in poverty without enough food water or sanitation Still the US government Age 25 Publishes Old Indian Legends Age 34 Helps compose the first Native American opera The Sun Dance 10
Age 40 Becomes secretary of the Society of American Indians Age 44 Publishes American Indian Stories had continued to seize lands and break treaties that promised protection from white settlers taking over Native lands When Zitkála Šá was fourteen roughly 250 to 300 Lakota were killed at the Wounded Knee Massacre Zitkála Šá saw these injustices and decided the only way to fight them was to continue her education She was awarded a scholarship to attend Earlham College in Indiana where she began to collect and write down stories from Native tribes She worked hard to portray her people as seeking to stand side by side with fellow Americans She published stories in Atlantic Monthly criticizing boarding schools that ripped children from their families and forced them to adopt the religion language and culture of white society without giving them the same rights One of the ways she protected Indigenous culture was through music and dance Zitkála Šá teamed up with white composer William F Hanson to write The Sun Dance Opera the first known Native American opera The opera featured a sacred dance and actors dressed in authentic costumes This was a bold move At the time ceremonial dances were outlawed by the American government But Zitkála Šá knew that art could build a bridge between her people and white ideals Politics became the other bridge In 1926 Zitkála Šá and her husband founded the National Council of American Indians One of the primary goals was to obtain the right to vote Although Native Americans were granted citizenship in 1924 through the Indian Citizenship Act the US Constitution left it up to the states to decide who had the right to vote Many states continued to deny voting rights to Native Americans for the next forty years Zitkála Šá died in 1938 before she got to see her dream of equal rights for her people or the elimination of Native boarding schools but her writing remains in the hearts of Native American people today Age 47 Exposes the ill treatment of Native American tribes in Oklahoma's Poor Rich Indians Age 50 With her husband forms the National Council of American Indians NCAI 11 Age 61 Dies
