Editing Sarah Winnemucca (section)

==Pyramid Lake War and stage==
[[File:Numaga.jpg|thumb|right|Numaga, or "Young Winnemucca", Sarah Winnemucca's cousin and war leader of the Paiute in the Pyramid Lake War.]]
With the decreasing pressure of new migrants in the region attracted to the Washoe silver finds, Old Winnemucca arranged in 1859 to have his daughters returned to him again in Nevada. In 1860, open conflict occurred. At [[Williams Station massacre|Williams Station]], two Paiute girls were kidnapped and abused, leading the Paiute to kill five men at the station. Settlers and miners organized a militia, with Major [[William Ormsby]] leading it by default. He was killed by the Paiute in a disciplined confrontation in the first event of the [[Pyramid Lake War]]. Settlers were alarmed at how well the Paiute fought and the ill-prepared miners could not hold their own.{{sfn|Canfield|1988|pp=24–25}} Young Winnemucca, Sarah's cousin, led the Paiute as a war chief during the war.{{sfn|Canfield|1988|pp=13, 24}}

The Paiute and whites reached a truce that lasted four years,{{sfn|Canfield|1988|p= 43}} but it was a difficult time for the Paiute who lived on the Pyramid Lake Reservation, giving up their hunter-gatherer way of life.<ref name="Eves" /> After the first year, they did not receive the promised supplies from the government and did not have the training needed to be effective farmers. Many Paiute starved to death.<ref name="Eves" /> After Winnemucca begged for food for her people, military officials at Camp McDermit (later [[Fort McDermit]]) sent supplies.<ref name="Eves" />

As a mark of development, Nevada was established as a distinct U.S. Territory, and [[James W. Nye]] was appointed as its first governor. When he came to the territory, he went to the Pyramid Lake Reservation, where he met Old Winnemucca, Young Winnemucca and the Paiute, who put on a grand display.{{sfn|Canfield|1988|p=33}} In October 1860, their grandfather Truckee died of a [[tarantula]] bite.{{sfn|Canfield|1988|p=29}}

For the next five years (1860–1865), Winnemucca and her family frequently traveled away from the reservation, performing on stage, either in [[Virginia City, Nevada]] at Maguire's Opera House, or in [[San Francisco]]. They were billed as the "Paiute Royal Family."<ref name="omer" /> By this time, her father had taken a second, younger wife, with whom he had a young son.<ref name="omer" />

In Nevada, U.S. forces repeatedly acted against Native Americans to "remind them of who was in charge." The Natives were repeatedly accused of raids and cattle stealing.<ref name="omer" /> In 1865, Almond B. Wells led a Nevada Volunteer cavalry in indiscriminate raids across the northern part of the state, attacking Paiute bands. While Winnemucca and her father were in [[Dayton, Nevada]], Wells and his men attacked Old Winnemucca's camp, killing 29 of the 30 persons in the band, who were old men, women and children.<ref name="omer" />

The chief's two wives (including Winnemucca's mother) and infant son were killed.<ref name="omer" /> Although Winnemucca's sister Mary escaped from camp, she died later that winter due to the severe conditions.{{sfn|Canfield|1988|pp=44–45}} Her younger sister Elma was out of the area, as she had been adopted by a French family in [[Marysville, California]]. There Elma Winnemucca married John Smith, a white man, and moved with him to a white community in Montana and, later, Idaho.{{sfn|Canfield|1988|p=49}}

In 1868, about 490 Paiute survivors moved to a Camp McDermit, on the Nevada–Oregon border. They sought protection from the U.S. Army against the Nevada Volunteers. In 1872, the federal government established the [[Malheur Reservation]] in eastern Oregon, designated by President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] for the Northern Paiute and [[Bannock (tribe)|Bannock]] peoples in the area. Three bands of Paiute moved there at the time. In 1875, Winnemucca, her brother Natchez and his family, and their father Old Winnemucca moved there, too.{{sfn|Canfield|1988|p=92}}