Zitkala-Ša, née Gertrude Simmons, was a writer, musician, journal editor, and Native rights activist in the early twentieth century. From the time she began writing, Zitkala-Ša contested European American reform agendas that would have the effect of erasing Native ways of knowing from the American cultural and intellectual landscape. Born at the Yankton Agency in Dakota Territory in 1876, Zitkala-Ša was the daughter of a Yankton Sioux woman and a European American trader who abandoned the family before her birth. At age eight, after attending a Presbyterian bilingual day school on the reservation, Zitkala-Ša entered an English-only Quaker boarding school, White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, which received government funding to educate Native American students. Between her two…
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Citation: Spack, Ruth. "Zitkala-Ša". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 July 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12939, accessed 26 November 2024.]
