She supported some assimilationist reforms common in her era.

She also fought federal decisions that she believed harmed her tribe.

She dressed as a professional Victorian woman.

She remained an Omaha woman whose deepest work was rooted in the reservation where she had been born.

That complexity is important because later retellings sometimes turn Susan into a simple symbol of “progress.”

Her real story is more interesting.

She did not merely leave Native life behind and succeed in white society.

She learned the tools of white institutions and brought those tools back home.

Education Was Supposed To Transform Native Children

Susan’s schooling began close to home before taking her far from Nebraska.