Journal 11: About the president

Quote:

“I have never seen a president in my life and I want to know whether he is made of wood or rock, for I cannot for once think that he can be a human being. No human being would do such a thing as that,-send people across a fearful mountain in midwinter” (Winnemucca, 510).

Summary:
These are Winnemucca words after she finds out that the president has commanded the soldiers to translate her people to the Yakima Preservation.

Response:

Again, here I think Winnemucca is making the statement that white people are merely savages who do not care about other but themselves. In this case, she talks about the president and his nonsense commands. In this case the command of taking the Indians to the Yakima Preservation in the middle of the winter, will not only jeopardize the Indian lives, but also the soldiers’. Thus, she dehumanizes the president, which for her would come to be the worst enemy, because up to that point she had been doing the best to protect her people. She is also saying that the president of the new world, is nothing but a tyrant and no better than a “beast”, which is a very strong statement even if she is telling a story. Definitely, she knew how to use words to her convenience, because she was able to achieve different feelings with her story, and at the same time, she was talking her mind about the president.

Also, I would say that her words show the president’s true objective in transporting the Indians at this time. He is deliberately suggesting that it does not matter whether these Indians live or die, because either way, he wants to get rid of them. This is all implied in Winnemucca’s words which clearly show what her people were going through during a time of oppression, when the Indians, who had lived long enough in peace, were threatened by a new powerful culture, which simply saw them as savages, who had no right to be called “people”.