Emma Cornelia Sickels

Emma Cornelia Sickels (1854–1920) was an American teacher. She had a complex relationship with Indigenous peoples through her work with the United States government. White society regarded her as a hero for collecting information and mediating peace between the US and the Lakota people in 1890. During this time, she incorrectly blamed Native Americans for the Wounded Knee Massacre. In 1893, she was publicly fired from the Anthropology and Ethnology Department at the Chicago World's Fair for protesting how her boss was falsely showcasing Native American life to display Indigenous people as uncivilized.

Early life

Sickels was born in 1854 in Massachusetts. She was the fourth child of George Edward Sickels and the second child of Maria Louisa Smith.

Sickels went to college at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She graduated in 1872. Soon after, she moved to Chicago, Illinois to teach. She never married. She received authority from the War and Interior Departments of the US government. The US Secretary of War, Redfield Proctor, and Commanding General of the United States Army, John Schofield, approved her work as a mediator. She also planned a meeting between Little Wound and Pine Ridge government officials. She wrote that Red Cloud was Little Wound's real enemy. She believed that he was causing trouble and telling newspapers he was Little Wound.

Before the Massacre, the US government had banned the Ghost Dance ceremony and tried to arrest Sitting Bull, who was killed while being taken into custody. The doctrine of the ghost dance was that eventually, all indigenous people would happily live with no death, illness, or sadness. She received a medal with the words "To Emma C. Sickels, the Heroine of Pine Ridge; for exceptional bravery in checking the Indian war of 1890." engraved on it. The metal was from the International Society of La Saveur of Paris. She believed she received this job as recognition of her work at Pine Ridge. The US government set up a model of a federal school for Native American children. Putnam and his team hoped to display a picture of white saviorism and primitive Native Americans. Putnam fired Sickels for her protests. Sickels began writing to the New York Times, sharing with the public that some Native American groups were excluded from participating in the exhibits to display Native American culture as uncivilized. She also disagreed with the display of Kwakwakaʼwakw ceremonials. She accused Putnam of showcasing these dances to degrade Native Americans publicly in the New York Times. After she was publicly fired, Sickels went to work for the Board of Lady Managers.

One of Sickels's coworkers at the Columbian Exposition, James Mooney, started studying the Ghost Dance Religion around the same time as the Wounded Knee Massacre. During his work for the Exhibition, he wrote a book, The Ghost-Dance Religion and Wounded Knee. This is the first actual investigation into the causes of the conflict. The central narrative of the book is based on the words of George Sword, an Oglala Lakota man that was translated by Emma Sickels. This translation is the only primary source of the Ghost Dance Massacre told from a victim's side. She also collected Lakota ghost dance songs that Mooney published.

Later in life

After the fair, she became secretary of the National Domestic Science Association and Natural Pure Food Association. She submitted an 1899 patent for purifying vegetable oils. She worked with Congress in the 1910s to improve nutrition guidelines.

She died on December 13, 1920, at Elgin State Hospital in Illinois. She was 66. She is buried in Mount Albion Cemetery in Albion, New York.