Zitkala-Sa (1876 - 1938)

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Zitkala-Ša was born Gertrude Simmons, the daughter of a Yankton Dakota Sioux mother and white father. She spent her early years at a series of Quaker schools before teaching briefly at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, a boarding school now notorious for its attempts to destroy Native American culture. Uncomfortable with the politics at Carlisle, Zitkala-Ša turned to writing and political work. She founded the National Council of American Indians and spent her life advocating for Native American citizenship, civil rights, access to healthcare, and cultural preservation. She died in Washington D.C. in 1938 and is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.

Along with her fiction, Zitkala-Ša wrote important political documents raising awareness about the atrocities faced by Native Americans. One text in particular, Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft, Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Legalized Robbery (Office of the Indian Rights Association, 1924), was instrumental in creating the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, an effort to preserve Native American land. Zitkala-Ša’s fiction often highlights the tensions Native American characters feel as they strive to preserve their culture, as well as the devastation caused by the white occupation of Native American land. She especially explores the impact of Christianity on Native American religion and the need to resist cultural assimilation. Her fiction also often portrays strong female characters, as seen in stories such as “A Warrior’s Daughter.”