Sarah Winnemucca's Life among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883) is generally acknowledged to be the first autobiography by a Native American woman. She formed an alliance with two New England activists and educators -- Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and her sister, Mary Mann -- who urged her to write her personal and tribal history in their rented rooms at 54 Bowdoin Street in Boston. Mann, who edited the autobiography, and Peabody, who raised the funds to have it printed, intended to use it to influence federal policy and legislation. To achieve this aim, Gae Whitney Canfield writes, "every effort was made by Sarah and her Boston friends to get the autobiography printed, bound, and out to the public before the next session of Congress." To help right the wrongs suffered by the Paiutes, Winnemucca founded the Peabody Indian School in the last few years of her life. Winnemucca's book...