<b>Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins (c. 1844 &ndash; 1891) was a Northern Paiute author, activist and educator.<br />Winnemucca published Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), a book that is both a memoir and history of her people during their first 40 years of contact with European Americans.</b><br />It is considered the &quot;first known autobiography written by a Native American woman.&quot;<br />Anthropologist Omer Stewart described it as &quot;one of the first and one of the most enduring ethnohistorical books written by an American Indian,&quot; frequently cited by scholars.<br />Following the publication of the book, Winnemucca toured the Eastern United States, giving lectures about her people in New England, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. She returned to the West, founding a private school for Native American children in Lovelock, Nevada.