A bronze statue of Sarah Winnemucca stands at the Emancipation Hall in the US Capitol Visitor Center, representing the state of Nevada since its dedication on March 9th, 2005.
Sarah Winnemucca (1844-1891) was a Northern Paiute leader, negotiator, peacemaker, lecturer, activist, social reformer, teacher, and writer.
She was born with the name Thocmentony, Shell Flower, to a Paiute family of leaders, her father was Chief Winnemucca, and her grandfather was Chief Truckee. She grew up and became a teacher, interpreter, and Paiute people promoter in every place she lived. During the Bannock War in 1878, she rescued her father and tribe members from captivity. After the war, she toured the country, giving hundreds of lectures and advocating for equal rights for Native Americans. She assembled her speeches into an autobiography: “Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims,” becoming in 1883 the first Native American woman to publish a book and the first to secure her copyright registration in the US. Later in life, she co-founded a school for Paiute children, teaching them Native American culture and languages.
The idea to honor Winnemucca with a statue in the US Capitol was of the Nevada Women’s History Project. When they found out that Nevada has only one sculpture at the National Statuary Hall Collection, they embarked on a campion, gathering the legislators and the people’s support and funding to put the Sarah Winnemucca statue in Washington, DC.
The artist, Benjamin Victor, was anonymously chosen to create the statue. He also sculptured two other sculptures for National Statuary Hall Collection.
A copy of this statue stands at the Nevada State Capitol Building in Carson City, Nevada.
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