Between 1879 and 1934, the United States government made a concerted effort to dissolve tribes by dividing communally-held lands and forcing American Indians to adopt Euro-American practices. Three women seized a wave of national fascination with American Indians to challenge the national drive to assimilate indigenous peoples.
This book focuses on these women: writer and activist Helen Hunt Jackson, whose 1884 bestseller Ramona has been called the "Indian Uncle Tom's Cabin"; the Paiute lecturer, educator, and political activist Sarah Winnemucca, whose Life Among the Paiutes is believed to be the first Native American woman's autobiography; and Victoria Howard, the Clackamas Chinook storyteller who worked with Melville Jacobs in 1929 to transcribe hundreds of narratives, ethnographies, and songs.