Sarah Hopkins (née Winnemucca; c. 1844 – October 17, 1891) was a Northern Paiute writer, activist, lecturer, teacher, and school organizer. Her Northern Paiute name was Thocmentony, also spelled Tocmetone, which translates as "Shell Flower". Sarah Winnemucca was born near Humboldt Lake, in present-day Nevada, into an influential Northern Paiute family who led their community in pursuing friendly relations with the arriving groups of Anglo-American settlers. She was the daughter of Chief Winnemucca of the Paiute nation and the granddaughter of Chief Truckee.

Family and a changing homeland

Born "somewhere near 1844" at Humboldt Lake in what is now western Nevada, Sarah Winnemucca was the daughter of Winnemucca (Poito), a Shoshone who had joined the Paiute through marriage, and his wife Tuboitonie. Her father was an influential war chief of a small band of about 150 Northern Paiute people. The town of Winnemucca, Nevada was named after her father. Winnemucca's grandfather, Tru-ki-zo or Truckee, had established positive relations with the European Americans who started exploring in the area.

Truckee guided Captain John C. Frémont during his 1843–45 survey and map-making expedition across the Great Basin to California. Later, Truckee fought in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), earning many white friends and leading the way for his extended family's relationships with European Americans. Sarah had an older sister Mary, younger brother Natchez, and sister Elma. She and her family spent her early childhood in eastern Oregon and western Nevada. She learned the ways of her people, including fishing and gathering plants.

At the age of six, Winnemucca traveled with her family to near Stockton, California, where the adults worked in the cattle industry. In 1857, her grandfather arranged for Winnemucca (then 13) and her sister Elma to live and work in the household of William Ormsby and his wife; he had a hotel and was a civic leader of Carson City, Nevada.

Interpreting during conflict

In 1871, at the age of 27, Winnemucca began working in the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Fort McDermitt as an interpreter, and later was invited to interpret at the Malheur Reservation by Indian Agent Samuel B. Parrish. She found in observing Parrish that he worked well with the Paiute; he encouraged them in learning some new ways and helped them plant crops that could support the people, establishing a well-managed agricultural program. He had a school built at the reservation, and Winnemucca became an assistant teacher.

Winnemucca was also an interpreter for the U.S. Army and a lecturer across the western United States. In the 1880s, she lectured across the eastern United States and taught at Fort Vancouver and Peabody Institute in Lovelock, Nevada. Parrish was replaced in the summer of 1876 by agent William V. Rinehart. The Paiute were sorry to see Parrish leave. A proponent of extermination-style warfare, Rinehart emphasized keeping the Paiute under his thumb. He reversed many of the policies that Parrish had initiated, telling the Paiute the reservation land belonged to the government.

Agent William V. Rinehart failed to pay their workers for agricultural labor in communal fields, and alienated many tribal leaders. Conditions at the Malheur Reservation quickly became intolerable. In her 1883 book, Winnemucca recounted that Rinehart sold supplies intended for the Paiute people to local whites. Much of the good land on the reservation was illegally expropriated by white settlers.

Lectures, writing, and education

In 1883, the Hopkinses traveled east, where Winnemucca delivered nearly 300 lectures throughout major cities of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, seeking to heighten awareness of injustice against Native Americans. The press reported her talks and sometimes referred to her as the "Paiute Princess" or "Indian princess". In Boston, Winnemucca met the sisters Elizabeth Peabody and Mary Peabody Mann, the latter married to the educator Horace Mann; they began to promote her speaking career.

In addition, the two women helped her to compile and prepare her lecture materials for publication as Life Among the Piutes. Her book was published in 1883, the "first known autobiography written by a Native American woman" and the first U.S. copyright registration secured by a Native American woman. Winnemucca spent the last four years of her life retired from public activity. She died of tuberculosis at her sister Elma Smith's home at Henry's Lake, Idaho.