My last post was about my Zitkála-Šá essay (soon to be published in a book entitled Lingering Inland: A Literary Tour of the Midwest). I realized while writing that post that not everyone (including me, it turns out) has access to the-website-formerly-known-as-Twitter anymore, so I’m recreating my post about Zitkála-Šá below:
I wrote about Zitkála-Šá’s time as a student at Earlham College for New Territory Magazine! Here are five tidbits about her speech, “Side by Side,” that didn’t make it into my teeny tiny article:
The “Indian question”
First, Zitkála-Šá delivered an earlier version of this speech (also award-winning!) at Earlham. She rewrote it for the state competition to allow her wider audience (including judges from Harvard, Yale, and Vanderbilt) to hear more of her thoughts on equality and “the Indian question.”
This speech was given on May 13, 1896 as part of the 22nd Indiana State Oratorical Contest in Indianapolis.
Meet Gertrude
Zitkála-Šá (aka Gertrude Simmons) was the only woman and the only American Indian in the state competition. She was also just a freshman. The contest took place at English Hotel and Opera House, in Indianapolis’s Monument Circle. See this article from Historic Indiana for details and pictures.
In the article, I mention the Vanderbilt judge. He was a Southern man who disliked the part of Zitkála-Šá’s speech that mentioned slavery and gave her low marks because of it! Here’s what she said:
Praise for her speech
The Indianapolis News said Zitkála-Šá had a tough audience. Still,”her language was that of a cultivated young woman and her pronunciation was without trace of a tongue unfamiliar with English. Her manner was real, womanly and refined.” Feels like the 1896 version of “She’s so articulate!” :\
Part of the speech details everything lost to the advent of “civilization” (ie, broken treaties, “the White Man’s bullet” etc). “He loved his native land. Do you wonder still that in his breast he should brood revenge, when ruthlessly driven from the temples where he worshipped?”
Thanks again to Andy Oler for giving me such good feedback and the chance to write about one of my faves in the first place. Thanks, too, to Jenny Freed and Thomas Hamm, knee-deep in the archives at Earlham’s Lilly Library, for their help. Librarians truly are the bestest.
Find my earlier post about my essay here. Pre-order a copy of Lingering Inland at these links:
