WEBVTT 00:02.366 --> 00:07.333 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% Zitkála-úá is known for being the first Native person to write an 00:08.266 --> 00:10.066 align:left position:30% line:83% size:60% opera. She was a prolific writer, 00:11.500 --> 00:13.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% and very involved in getting Native people citizenship. 00:27.033 --> 00:31.200 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% 1900, Washington, D.C. 24-year-old Zitkála-úá, 00:32.300 --> 00:33.633 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, 00:35.066 --> 00:36.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% performed at the White House for President William McKinley. 00:41.200 --> 00:44.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% She was trained at the New England Conservatory of Music, 00:45.666 --> 00:49.133 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% and so she had a lot of choices that a lot of Native women at that 00:49.900 --> 00:50.366 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% time didn't have. 00:51.766 --> 00:52.966 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% She was musically gifted. 00:54.400 --> 00:57.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% People were fascinated with her because she was a performer, 00:58.466 --> 00:59.566 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% because she was articulate. 01:00.833 --> 01:02.266 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% "I seem to be in a spiritual unrest. 01:04.300 --> 01:07.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% I hate this eternal tug of war between being 'wild' or becoming 'civilized'... 01:08.633 --> 01:11.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% I am what I am. I owe no apologies to God or men.". 01:14.033 --> 01:15.333 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, 01:16.733 --> 01:19.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% was born in 1876 on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota, 01:21.500 --> 01:24.333 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% to the Ihanktonwan Nation. She later renamed herself, Zitkála-úá, 01:25.766 --> 01:28.366 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% meaning 'Red Bird' in the Lakota language. 01:30.266 --> 01:33.833 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% I don't think anything is known about her father except that he was a 01:35.200 --> 01:37.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% non-Indian, but her mother raised her up as an Indian girl, 01:38.833 --> 01:39.700 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% and she saw herself as an Indian. 01:42.433 --> 01:46.966 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% "I was a wild little girl, with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet. 01:48.166 --> 01:49.133 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% As free as the wind that blew my hair, 01:50.300 --> 01:52.133 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% and no less spirited than a bounding deer.". 01:53.800 --> 01:58.566 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% The Yankton Sioux made a treaty with the United States in the mid 1850s. 02:00.633 --> 02:04.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% They made peace early on and they were not caught up in the major conflicts that 02:05.866 --> 02:07.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% the other Sioux tribes had with the United States. 02:08.766 --> 02:13.433 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% There were 60 million American Indians in 02:14.833 --> 02:18.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% 1491. In the census in 1910, there were 200,000. 02:19.966 --> 02:24.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% A lot of that population loss is due to diseases, measles, 02:25.166 --> 02:25.533 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% smallpox, and so forth. 02:26.733 --> 02:30.500 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% For the colonizers who were greedy for Indian 02:31.666 --> 02:32.500 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% lands, there were two ways to get it. 02:33.966 --> 02:38.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Either by killing people or by making them non-Indians. 02:40.466 --> 02:42.666 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% In 1884, at age 8, 02:44.033 --> 02:46.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% like tens of thousands of other American Indian children, 02:47.933 --> 02:51.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Zitkála-úá left the reservation to attend a boarding school run by missionaries 02:51.833 --> 02:52.033 align:left position:30% line:89% size:60% in Indiana. 02:54.733 --> 02:59.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% The boarding school system was an institutional way of trying to erase tribal 03:01.366 --> 03:04.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% identity. You had children from all these different tribes thrown in together, 03:05.666 --> 03:09.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% made to wear uniforms, lose their individual identities, 03:10.100 --> 03:12.166 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% forbidden to speak their native languages, 03:13.766 --> 03:15.700 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% forced to become Christians. 03:17.700 --> 03:21.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% "Like a slender tree, I had been uprooted from my mother, nature, and God. 03:22.800 --> 03:23.866 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% I was shorn of my branches. 03:25.333 --> 03:29.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Now a cold bare pole I seem to be planted in a strange earth, 03:31.100 --> 03:33.800 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% trembling with fear and distrust. Often I wept in secret.". 03:35.666 --> 03:40.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% I was taken when I was young to this very strange place called 03:40.966 --> 03:41.200 align:left position:30% line:89% size:60% boarding school. 03:43.200 --> 03:46.133 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% The idea was they would take us from our parents and break down culture and 03:48.100 --> 03:50.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% history and language and tradition. My name is LaDonna Brave Bull Allard. 03:52.333 --> 03:55.433 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% My real name is Ta Maka Waste Win, which means Her Good Earth Woman. 03:57.300 --> 04:00.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% I am a historian and genealogist for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and I 04:01.666 --> 04:02.400 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% stand up for my people. 04:03.866 --> 04:07.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Nobody knows who we are in our own country, in our own land. 04:08.766 --> 04:11.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% We became invisible in America. So for 35 years, 04:13.066 --> 04:13.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% I've compiled the history of my people. I've 04:15.333 --> 04:17.566 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% been trying to heal my people through language 04:19.300 --> 04:21.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% and culture and tradition and spirituality. 04:24.166 --> 04:25.500 align:left position:40% line:89% size:50% In 1897, 04:27.400 --> 04:28.866 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Zitkála-úá became a teacher at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, 04:30.666 --> 04:33.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% one of the first federally-funded boarding schools for American 04:35.300 --> 04:37.533 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% Indian youth, founded by military officer Richard Henry Pratt. 04:39.200 --> 04:44.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% The idea that Richard Pratt had was to kill the Indian to 04:46.066 --> 04:48.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% save the man. The way you look, the way you dress, the way you think, 04:49.633 --> 04:51.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% the way you talk, the way you pray. They had to cut that out. 04:53.366 --> 04:56.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Save the soul inside. It's tragic, really. Native 05:00.100 --> 05:02.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% people weren't even viewed as human beings at this time. 05:04.533 --> 05:08.466 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% After disagreements with Pratt, Zitkála-úá left her job at Carlisle, 05:09.166 --> 05:10.233 align:left position:30% line:89% size:60% and in 1900, 05:12.133 --> 05:14.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% published several exposés about the trauma of the boarding school experience in 05:15.433 --> 05:15.633 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% the Atlantic Monthly. 05:17.933 --> 05:20.733 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% "Gazing upon the Indian girls and boys bending over their books, 05:20.733 --> 05:24.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% the white visitors walked out of the schoolhouse well satisfied: 05:26.300 --> 05:28.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% they were educating the children of the 'Red Man'! 05:30.000 --> 05:34.233 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% But few have paused to question whether real life or long-lasting death lies 05:35.366 --> 05:36.933 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% beneath this semblance of civilization.". 05:38.966 --> 05:40.533 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% The stories are published. 05:42.100 --> 05:44.333 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% And the criticisms are that she bites the hands that fed her - that 05:46.900 --> 05:49.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% she's criticizing the boarding school education, 05:50.666 --> 05:51.800 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% which educated her to write the stories. 05:52.433 --> 05:53.266 align:left position:40% line:89% size:50% In 1901, 05:55.266 --> 05:57.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Zitkála-úá also published a book of short stories based on the Sioux oral 05:58.000 --> 05:58.633 align:left position:30% line:89% size:60% tradition. 06:00.633 --> 06:03.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% "I have tried to transplant the native spirit of these tales into the English 06:05.700 --> 06:08.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% language, since America in the last few centuries has acquired a new tongue.". 06:09.233 --> 06:13.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% She works very hard to make the 06:14.400 --> 06:16.066 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% disparate parts of her life fit together. 06:17.900 --> 06:21.333 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% But she also sees herself as being a preserver of those stories. 06:22.866 --> 06:26.066 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% In 1902, Zitkála-úá married Raymond Bonnin, 06:27.266 --> 06:28.766 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% another boarding school survivor from her tribe. 06:30.766 --> 06:34.900 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% They lived for 14 years among the Ute Nation on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation 06:36.866 --> 06:39.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% in Utah, raising their son and working for the Bureau of Indian affairs. 06:43.866 --> 06:45.533 align:left position:30% line:89% size:60% There, in 1913, 06:46.933 --> 06:48.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Zitkála-úá wrote the first American Indian opera, 06:50.300 --> 06:51.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% in collaboration with white composer William Hanson. 06:53.733 --> 06:57.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% 'The Sun Dance Opera' was inspired by a sacred ceremony of spiritual healing 06:58.433 --> 06:59.366 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% then outlawed by the U.S. Government. 07:00.900 --> 07:02.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Sun Dance is common among the tribes on the Plains. 07:02.766 --> 07:02.900 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% And it is a dance of personal devotion and sacrifice. She is resisting the 07:12.333 --> 07:14.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% denial of religious ritual, 07:15.533 --> 07:18.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% and trying to elevate these tribal sacred dances and songs 07:19.866 --> 07:21.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% to what she knows is respected in Western society, 07:22.700 --> 07:24.066 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% which is grand opera. 07:28.000 --> 07:32.566 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% The opera was staged across Utah 15 times by a mixed Native and non-native 07:34.133 --> 07:36.366 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% cast. With the major roles performed by trained white singers, 07:37.900 --> 07:41.233 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% some critics suggest the opera presented stereotypical depictions 07:41.966 --> 07:42.733 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% of American Indians. 07:45.033 --> 07:49.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% The opera gave a space to perform sacred dances and songs 07:50.800 --> 07:53.166 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% in a public setting. It preserved those songs. 07:57.166 --> 08:00.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% As she witnessed the quality of life on Indian reservations decline, 08:02.000 --> 08:04.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Zitkála-úá moved to Washington, D.C. in 1916, 08:06.066 --> 08:07.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% to dedicate the rest of her life to political activism. 08:10.266 --> 08:13.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% "Indians are virtually prisoners of war in America. 08:15.066 --> 08:17.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Treaties with our government are still unfulfilled... There 08:19.666 --> 08:22.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% is no doubt about the direction in which I wish to go: 08:23.933 --> 08:26.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% to spend my energies in working for the Indian race.". 08:26.666 --> 08:30.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% As secretary of the Society of American Indians, 08:32.700 --> 08:35.133 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% the first civil rights organization created by and for American Indians, 08:36.633 --> 08:39.133 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% she edited its journal, and served as a lobbyist in Congress. 08:40.533 --> 08:42.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% She gives public speeches, she writes editorials. 08:44.366 --> 08:47.866 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% And one of her major causes was to help get citizenship for American 08:48.333 --> 08:48.700 align:left position:40% line:89% size:50% Indians. 08:51.200 --> 08:55.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% "Now the time is at hand when the American Indian shall have his day in court, 08:55.100 --> 08:58.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% and find his rightful place in our American life. 08:59.866 --> 09:01.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Wardship is no substitute for citizenship, 09:02.966 --> 09:04.500 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% therefore we seek enfranchisement.". 09:06.366 --> 09:10.833 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Zitkála-úá's work was significant to the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act 09:12.233 --> 09:15.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% of 1924, which granted U.S. citizenship to American Indians. 09:17.500 --> 09:21.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Zitkála-úá understood that there's these two worlds that you have to be a part 09:22.366 --> 09:23.633 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% of, and you want to have power in both of them. 09:24.633 --> 09:26.000 align:left position:40% line:89% size:50% In 1926, 09:27.800 --> 09:29.800 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% she and her husband founded the National Council of American Indians, 09:31.733 --> 09:33.833 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% to continue advocating for American Indians' rights and representation. 09:35.166 --> 09:37.833 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% She served as its president for 12 years. 09:37.833 --> 09:41.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% That to me is like somebody who has enough empowerment 09:43.800 --> 09:47.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% in herself and enough integrity that she didn't let them stop her. 09:48.600 --> 09:52.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% In my culture, women have always been warriors. 09:53.633 --> 09:57.100 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% In 2014, they called me and said, 'LaDonna, 09:58.666 --> 10:00.566 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% there's a pipeline being proposed. You gotta look at the map. 10:02.000 --> 10:04.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% You're the closest land owner.' And I thought, how dare they, 10:05.366 --> 10:07.366 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% I buried my son on that hill. And I said, no. 10:09.300 --> 10:12.466 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% So we started Sacred Stone Camp, and asked people to come stand with me. 10:14.766 --> 10:18.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% People from the whole world came in a nonviolent resistance. 10:20.033 --> 10:22.200 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% She would have stood with us, 10:23.633 --> 10:25.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% and she probably would have been one of the musicians playing. 10:26.433 --> 10:28.833 align:left position:20% line:89% size:70% Zitkála-úá died in 1938, 10:30.800 --> 10:33.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% three months before the New York premiere of 'The Sun Dance Opera.' Because of 10:34.600 --> 10:35.733 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% her husband's military service in World War I, 10:36.933 --> 10:38.266 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% she was buried at Arlington Cemetery. 10:39.766 --> 10:44.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% She firmly believed that the answer to Indian issues 10:45.533 --> 10:46.333 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80% lay in Indian people themselves. 10:48.366 --> 10:52.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Indians are still fighting for their rights - the theft of Indian land, 10:53.633 --> 10:55.166 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% missing and murdered indigenous women, 10:56.600 --> 10:58.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% voters rights - and that's where her voice is important. 11:00.100 --> 11:02.200 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% "The American Indian must have a voice. 11:03.600 --> 11:05.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Let us teach our children to be proud of their Indian blood. 11:07.366 --> 11:10.600 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% Let us stand up straight and continue claiming our human rights."