Zitkala-Sa
Gertrude Bonnin was born in 1876 as a Dakota Indian. Gertrude, who later went by the name Zitkala-Sa, was the daughter of a white man and an Indian woman. She grew up on an Indian reservation with her mother. During her youth Zitkala-Sa struggled with her identity as an Indian because the government was determined to eliminate the Indian culture. Sa later left the reservation and pursued an education. She went on to graduate from college and became passionate for writing and teaching. Sa accepted a teaching job at an Indian school were she was devoted to teaching her students while preserving the Indian culture they had. The strict, "independent-minded", school objected to the ways in which she taught her class. Sa left the school and devoted the rest of her life to being a writer and an activist for Native Americans.
Her Work
Zitkala-Sa wrote so that she could bring awareness to the injustices suffered by Native Americans. In what is perhaps her most famous writing, "The School Days of an Indian Slave Girl", Sa gives accounts of the hardships she faced while attending the Quakers school and White Institute. Sa wanted her readers to know and feel what it would be like for someone, young and innocent, to be stripped of their heritage. She continued to write about such injustices and went on to found the Nation Council of American Indians. She resided as president until her death in January of 1938.