"...planted in a strange earth."

On Zitkála-Šá, one of the most influential writers and activists of the twentieth century & author of Cita's new open access collection

Oct 31, 2024

Last Thursday, Cita Press published Planted in a Strange Earth: Selected Writings by Zitkála-Šá. We celebrated in Salt Lake City at a “Historic Change” event for a new quarter memorializing the book’s author, Zitkála-Šá (also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin). The evening featured a speech by Chief Mutáwi Mutáhash Marilynn Malerba (current Treasurer of the United States), a performance of one of Bonnin’s operatic compositions (by Sanae Fujii), a reading by her great-great-grandson (teaching artist Matthew Bonnin), and more.1 It was presented by the United States Mint and the National Women’s History Museum as part of the American Women Quarters™ Program, in partnership with the Utah State Historical Society and Utah women’s history organization Better Days.

Sharing space with so many people invested in a Cita author—including organizers, teachers, and people just starting to learn about Zitkála-Šá—was a precious and invigorating experience. It was especially exciting to talk with Dr. P. Jane Hafen, a scholar who has worked for decades to tell Bonnin’s story in her own words, and to meet Zitkála-Šá’s family. Later I visited the Gertrude and Raymond Bonnin Collection at the Brigham Young University Library, where I combed through letters, notebooks, and documents that bear the handwriting of one of the most fascinating and influential women of the twentieth century.

There is so much to say about the event, the archive, and the people making her legacy more visible. Here, for now, we’ll introduce Zitkála-Šá and the contributors who made our new (free!) book possible.

—Jessi Haley, editorial director

Zitkála-Šá (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin): 1876-1938

“Zitkála-Šá, née Gertrude Simmons: a self-created myth with a self-given name, steadfast in her quest to better the situation of Native people.” —Erin Marie Lynch

Portrait of Zitkála-Šá by Gertrude Kasebier, ~1898 (left); Zitkála-Šá, ~1921 (right)

Taking the stage

On March 13, 1896, a twenty-year-old college freshman named Gertrude Simmons arrived in Indianapolis to attend the Indiana State Oratorical Contest. She was to represent Earlham College with a speech she had recently rewritten, shifting from its original discussion of women’s rights to an even more controversial subject.

Boisterous spectators had strung the packed hall at the English Opera House and Hotel with banners proclaiming their school spirit and mocking their rivals. Gertrude entered just after a scuffle between Earlham and Butler students that had been sparked by one of the banners. She was to go last. Seated in the front row, the young Dakota woman attracted much “curiosity” from the all-white audience.

The five competitors who went before her all trumpeted love of country, American expansionism, Christian values, etc. When it was finally her turn, the “small, slight” Gertrude approached the podium and began to speak. At first, she seemed to adopt a similar brand of patriotism to the previous speeches. In a small but commanding voice, she remarked upon how America had become a “a nation of free men and free institutions” whose “marvelous progress” was evident.

However, things quickly took a turn:

But see! At the bidding of thought the tide of time rolls back four hundred years. The generations of men of all nations, kindred, and tongues, who have developed this civilization in America, return to the bosom of the Old World… America is one great wilderness again. Over the trees of the primeval forest curls the smoke of the wigwam…

Gertrude laid out a decisive call for equal rights for the American Indian, puncturing the myths of American exceptionalism along the way. She alluded to slavery and to centuries of violence and oppression perpetuated in “the name of religion and liberty.” Throughout a history stained with blood and hypocrisy, the “civilized” white man in America had failed to keep his promises—particularly to the people who lived there first. She called upon her listeners to come together to set things right. “Our country must not shame her principles by such consummate iniquity.”

The rapt audience burst into applause when the speech concluded. But when its author looked up from the podium, she saw for the first time the large banner that her classmates had been provoked by earlier. It was a white flag with a racist caricature of an Indian woman drawn on it; the word “Humility” was printed in large black letters.

Gertrude Simmons won second place in the contest (one angry judge’s score prevented her from taking first). State, local and school newspapers wrote glowingly of her skill, her striking presence, her conviction. But though they celebrated the artistry with which she made her argument, they did not dwell on what she actually said up there on the podium.

A varied yet focused career

A few years later, Gertrude wrote about the night of the contest—about the mix of triumph and rage she felt, about her isolation from both her fellow students and her mother back home on the reservation— in a piece called “The School Days of an Indian Girl.” It was the second of three autobiographical stories published in Atlantic Monthly in the winter of 1900. In her distinctive and modern voice, she describes her early life as a perceptive, spirited child growing up on the Yankton Indian Reservation; as a heartbroken boarding school pupil severed from her family, traditions, and language; and as a young teacher entering a political awakening.

The publication of “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” “School Days,” and “An Indian Teacher Among Indians” marked the author’s break with the assimilationist boarding school system that had shaped much of her life up to that point. It also marked what many consider to be the first time an American Indian woman’s writing was published without serious editorial intervention. This triptych, her “political autobiography,” introduced Gertrude Simmons (later Gertrude Bonnin) to a national audience under the Lakota name she had given herself: Zitkála-Šá (“Red Bird”).

Zitkála-Šá went on to publish more stories and essays and two book-length collections: Old Indian Legends (1901; illustrated by Angel DeCora) and American Indian Stories (1921). While working on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she wrote the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera, the first American Indian opera.

In addition to her groundbreaking creative work, Bonnin was an extremely determined political activist. Her efforts influenced the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924; from there she fought continued obstruction of Native voting rights. That same year, while an agent for the ⁣General Federation of Women’s Clubs, she wrote Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians: An Orgy of Graft and Exploitation of the Five Civilized Tribes—Legalized Robbery, an exposé that helped trigger the federal investigations chronicled in Killers of the Flower Moon. She was constantly writing pamphlets, letters, editorials, appeals.2 In 1926, she and her husband Raymond co-founded the National Council of American Indians, for which she served as president until her death in 1938.

“…few there are who have paused to question…”

Press clippings reveal that, like the crowd at the Indiana State Oratorical Contest, Zitkála-Šá’s early readers and the white suffragists who feted the “Indian Princess” in club meetings were often more interested in the aesthetic qualities of her work and person than they were in her message. She knew when she was being objectified, but she did whatever she could to enlist meaningful support for her cause. In her lifelong fight for Native rights, she employed every tool available to her, including her own image, her personal and professional connections, the vast majority of her time and money, and her considerable and varied talents.

Today, the weight and relevance of Zitkála-Šá’s work—of her voice—is apparent everywhere, particularly as Tuesday’s U.S. election looms. We can now celebrate her representation on currency; we can enjoy her captivating writing. But, as we commemorate her as a figure, we must also listen to what she has to say.

Planted in a Strange Earth Contributors

We are immensely grateful to Mer Young (cover), Kassie John (zine) and Erin Marie Lynch (foreword) for bringing this collection to life.

Erin Marie Lynch is the author of Removal Acts (Graywolf Press, October 2023). Her poems appear in POETRY, New England Review, DIAGRAM, Narrative, Poetry Daily, Best New Poets, and other publications. She has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, the Wurlitzer Foundation, Indigenous Nations Poets, and the Hugo House. She was born and raised in Oregon; she is a direct descendant of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles.

More from Erin:

Removal Acts: Poems distilling personal and political history, memory and erasure, experiment and invitation.
“On ‘8.5x11’:” An essay on one of the poems from Removal Acts, for Poetry Daily.
Erin Marie Lynch by Mathangi Subramanian, an interview for BOMB Magazine.

Kassie John is a Diné designer and illustrator who specializes in digital storytelling and research-based art. Her work weaves together Diné and non-Diné creative practices to empower and carry on cultural knowledge, intergenerational healing, and reclamation with Indigenous Design pedagogies. As Miss Indian World 2024, she represents Native American, Indigenous, and First Nations cultures across the globe as Cultural Goodwill Ambassador. In October 2024, she was a featured speaker at Historic Change: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Zitkála-Šá.

More from Kassie:

Walking with Dinétah: icons for a community art and trail-walking initiative that weaves together oral histories and participatory art.
Native Generations: a diverse group of Native American dancers, singers, and cultural consultants.
Learn more about Miss Indian World and Kassie’s participation in the Historic Change event .

Mer Young (Chichimeca & Apache) is an Indigenous published multidisciplinary artist who has created a body of artwork manifested in collages, drawings, paintings, and public artworks. She lives and works on the traditional lands of Tongva (Long Beach, CA). She is a BIPOC activist, steward of land and water and environmental justice advocate. Young's artworks aim to inspire, celebrate and elevate indigenous and native cultures and to bring about change within Brown and Black communities.

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