Sister to the Sioux: The Memoirs of Elaine Goodale Eastman, 1885-1891

by Elaine Goodale Eastman, Kay Graber (Editor), Theodore D. Sargent (Introduction)

In 1885 a genteel New England girl traveled to the western frontier to open a school on the Great Sioux Reservation. For six years, Elaine Goodale Eastman taught, hunted with, and lived among the Lakotas, who were experiencing profound changes as buffalo herds dwindled and they were forced to adjust to reservation life. Her informative and sometimes poignant recollections of those years tell much about the daily lives of the Lakotas and how they grappled with challenges to their way of life. Goodale Eastman witnessed the arrival and flowering of the Ghost Dance religion, visited with Sitting Bull shortly before his death, and in December 1890 was at Pine Ridge, where she and her future husband, Dr. Charles Eastman, cared for the survivors of the Wounded Knee massacre. Sister to the Sioux bears witness to a critical and tragic era in Lakota history and reveals the frequently contradictory attitudes of outsiders drawn to them.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, 19th Century, Native American

183 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[MaryJo Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone interested in this portion of American History, Mrs. Eastman's memoirs are a must read. A young woman way ahead of her time, in 1885 she joined a group of admirable individuals who were honestly concerned with the Dakota Sioux and their fate. She taught school, learned the language,became their friends, and took an active interest in the education of the children; in other words, practiced her Christianity. In 1889 she was an eye witness to the tragedy of Wounded Knee.
This is very well written and informative.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book written by a woman who had been present during the final years of the earthbound Dakota Sioux culture as it was forced to convert to the white man's culture and ways of life. She writes of working to secure schooling in the territory. She does have an older way of writing that may seem dry to the modern reader, but it rings true and carries as much emotion as they would reveal in the early 1900s.

It is a good introduction to some of the changes and problems that led to Wounded Knee. She views the Dakota with empathy and understanding. It is sad where she ends the book, not only with the description of the massacre, but also her return to a domestic role as a homebound housewife with a traveling husband, especially where she was so free and independent when traveling herself through the land of the Dakotas.

[Nancy Motto]

This book broke my heart. Only 175 pages, Elaine Goodale Eastman’s memoir is a look back on her life teaching the Sioux Indians from 1885 – 1891. When the Dakota territory became two states, she became superintendent of Indian education for both states. Unlike many people of that day, Elaine Goodale Eastman embraced the native culture, ate the native foods and learned to speak Dakota which enabled her to get to know her charges intimately. Although up against corrupt policy makers, corporate greed, and programs that were sorely under funded, she never gave up the fight to help the people she came to love. This book starts when she has just come to the “Agency” and ends with the horrors of Wounded Knee, a horrible massacre which still haunts this country today. If you are interested in learning more about the sad history of the Dakota Sioux, I would highly recommend this book.

[Thomas J Elpel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at the Klein Museum in Mobridge, South Dakota, opposite from the Standing Rock Reservation. Written in the 1930s, Elaine Goodale recounts her experiences as a young woman when she left home in the northeast on a mission to educate the Sioux people to western ideology. Unlike other reformers who advocated taking children away from their parents to go to distant boarding schools, Goodale believed in bringing schools to the people. She embraced the Sioux people, lived with them, learned to speak Dakota, and preferred wearing moccasins. She and a similarly young gal worked among the Sioux largely unchaperoned right at the close of the frontier when the West was still truly wild. Goodale later married a western-educated Sioux named Charles Eastman, leading to multiple collaborative books between them, which I would also like to read.

[Ramya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Refreshing to hear the voice over a century ago discussing feelings and “feminine” angst over wanting to pursue a lifestyle and intellectual life only allowed to men in a chauvanist society but found a way to work with other races back in 1880s and see them as human and actually feel comfortable with all not just the “white” people she grew up with and was educated by and ultimately find herself in love with a half Native American. What I would have loved to “hear” of more are her feelings and trials juggling career, family, a cross-racial marriage, marriage, and life after this book ends.

[Marla Milligan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book - true story about a young woman who opened a day school for the Sioux Indian children. She ended up dedicating her life to serving them in many different capacities and witnessed the aftermath of Wounded Knee. I learned a lot about the history of this time.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elaine Goodale Eastman had a unique view of the Sioux Indians. She taught their children, she lived with them, she nursed them and she married one. What she saw and recorded in these memoirs was indeed the sad betrayal of the American government again and again towards the Sioux nation.
I tried to remember if this story was taught to me in American History. I do not believe it was. It is from people like Mrs. Eastman, who saw firsthand what happened, that we get the truth. These memoirs tell how things really were during the reservation of life of the 1880s.

[Nila Novotny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of a young woman who was a writer and then teacher of the Sioux in SD. She worked her way up into a school inspector in Indian territory and lived among the Natives for years. She learned the language and traditions so she had an excellent understanding of the culture. She was near at hand during the Wounded Knee massacre and so gives first hand account of the incident which she wasn’t afraid to write about when the government agency was lying about it. There is much to understand about Native Americans. Well worth reading.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a free discarded book from the library. It was very interesting, the memories of a young woman who helped teach on reservations, when they first started! It's also very sad, which is expected given the subject manner. She was quite a forward-thinking young lady, for her day.

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This shares the life of a Yankee girl who goes out to the Dakotas and aspires to assist in teaching the White Man ways to natives. Insightful, occasionally sad. B/W images.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Valuable first person history to read in conjunction with Wounded Knee accounts.

[Cameron Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elaine is my hero.

[Lacey Losh · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I found the subject of this book very intriguing, much of the actual writing was dry and factual, without enough human emotion or interesting detail for my taste.



Elaine Goodale Eastman was a teacher to the Sioux and lived among the native people. She was sympathetic to the traditions and needs of the Native American people. She wrote this memoir many years after teaching the Sioux, and she seems to have based it on her notes and her memories from the time period. I think this book would have been better written closer to the time she spent teaching the Sioux, perhaps there would have been a little more detail to her stories.



I still feel that Elaine’s life was fascinating, and I find encouragement in what she was able to accomplish in her lifetime. The story of her life is inspiring, but this book was far from my favorite.

[Charlotte Wallace]

I learned some interesting history and the sad reality of Indian affairs in our country. I have so much respect for Elaine Eastman, she was a true trail blazer, a real feminist in her day. She also crossed race lines but marrying an Indian.

[Catherine Richmond]

Elaine taught at Hampton and on the Sioux reservation in the 1880s. Hers is another biography that confirms God's plans great adventures for his people.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eastman's recollection of life with the Lakotas of the late 1800s contributed to my understanding of the period that lead up to the Wounded Knee massacre.

[P.J. O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

review to come...