Sophia Alice

Sophia Alice Callahan was a novelist and teacher of Muscogee heritage. Her novel, Wynema, a Child of the Forest (1891) is thought "to be the first novel written by a Native American woman". Shocked about the Massacre at Wounded Knee at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which took place about six months before she published her book, Callahan added an account of this and the 1890 Ghost Dance of the Lakota to her book in the first fictional treatment of these subjects. This may have been "the first novel written in Oklahoma", which was at the time Indian Territory. Callahan wrote in a romantic novel style but she also clearly intended what has been called a "reform novel", identifying many wrongs suffered by Native Americans in United States society. After being discovered in the late 20th century, the novel was reprinted in 1997. It has been the subject of scholarly studies.