Zitkala-Sa: Google honors writer, composer, suffragist on her 145th birthday

Happy Birthday Zitkala-Sa!

Today Google celebrates the 145th birthday of Zitkala-Sa with a beautiful artistic doodle. Zitkala-Sa was a writer, musician, teacher, composer, and suffragist. She was also a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota (Ihanktonwan Dakota Oyate or ‘People of the End Village’).

Zitkala-Sa was born on February 22, 1876 on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her mother Ellen Simmons raised her. Her father was a German-American man named Felker, who abandoned the family while Zitkala-Sa was young.

At eight years old, Zitkala-Sa left the reservation to attend White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a missionary boarding school where her hair was cut against her will, she was forbidden to speak her Lakota/Lakȟótiyapi language, and she was forced to practice a religion she didn’t believe in. She returned to the Yankton Reservation in 1887 for living with her mother.

Zitkala-Sa decided at age fifteen to return to the White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute. She planned to gain more through her education than becoming a housekeeper, as the school anticipated girls would eventually do. In June 1895, when Zitkala-Sa was awarded her diploma, she gave a speech on the inequality of women’s rights, which received high praise from the local newspaper.

Although Zitkala-Sa’s mother wanted her to return home after completing graduation, instead she opted to attend Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where she had been offered a scholarship. Higher education for women was quite limited at the time. She gradually started accumulating traditional stories from a spectrum of Native tribes, translating them first to Latin and then to English for children to read.

In addition to her creative achievements, Zitkala-Sa was a lifelong spokesperson for Indigenous and women’s rights. In 1926, Zitkala-Sa co-founded and served as first president of the National Council of American Indians.

Zitkala-Sa married Captain Raymond Talefase Bonnin in 1902. Talefase Bonnin was culturally Yankton and had one-quarter Yankton Dakota ancestry. She gave birth a son, Alfred Ohiya Bonnin.

Zitkala-Sa’s articles were published from 1900 to 1902 in the Atlantic Monthly. They included ‘An Indian Teacher Among Indians,’ published in Volume 85 in 1900. Her other articles ran in Harper's Monthly. She also wrote ‘A Warrior's Daughter’, published in 1902 in Volume 6 of Everybody's Magazine.

The works of Zitkala-Sa were instrumental in the passage of historic legislation, such as the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 — granting citizenship to Indigenous peoples born in the United States — as well as the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

Zitkala-Sa died on January 26, 1938 at the age of 61 in Washington D.C. The University of Nebraska reissued many of her writings on Native American culture in the late 20th century. Her legacy lives on as one of the most influential Native American activists of the 20th century.

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