“Don’t believe a word they say! Their words are sweet, but, my child, their deeds are bitter.” 

Zitkála-Šá’s mother warns her of the danger she believes White settlers hold for the Sioux. She emphasizes the contrast between the assurances of their promises and the reality of their deeds. This warning comes early in American Indian Stories, but Zitkála-Šá does not heed it at first. Only after she experiences the consequences of forced assimilation firsthand does she develop a critical perspective on White settlers and the US government’s treatment of American Indians.

“As I sat eating my dinner, and saw that no turnips were served, I whooped in my heart for having once asserted the rebellion within me.” 

Zitkála-Šá chooses to attend a mission school, but she quickly realizes that life there is not what she was promised it would be. She experiences the difficulties of forced assimilation but also seeks ways to rebel against the school’s strictness. When she is ordered to mash turnips for supper, she mashes them so forcefully that they turn to pulp and she breaks their container. Though she is still beholden to the school’s rules, she takes pride in her act of principled disobedience.

“Perhaps my Indian nature is the roaming wind which stirs them now for their present record.” 

Memories of Zitkála-Šá’s youth fill the first sections of “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” and she is particularly focused on reminiscences of the strict mission school, such as an American Indian girl who died at the school because of inadequate medical care.