If I can do one hundredth part for the Indian that Mrs. Stowe did for the Negro, I will be thankful.

Helen Hunt Jackson made this remark as she turned her literary reputation toward advocating for Native American rights in the late 1870s. After hearing a public lecture by Ponca chief Standing Bear and his interpreter Susette “Bright Eyes” La Flesche in 1879, Jackson became outraged by federal Indian policy and began writing and organizing on behalf of Indigenous peoples. She consciously modeled her hoped-for impact on Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose antislavery novel *Uncle Tom’s Cabin* (1852) had galvanized public opinion. Jackson’s statement captures her ambition to use literature and moral persuasion to awaken the U.S. public to injustices against Native nations.

The quote frames writing as a form of moral action. By invoking “Mrs. Stowe,” Jackson acknowledges the perceived power of a single book to shift national conscience and policy, while also expressing humility—she would be “thankful” to achieve even a fraction of Stowe’s influence. The comparison between “the Indian” and “the Negro” reflects a 19th‑century reform vocabulary that grouped different struggles under a shared humanitarian appeal, even as it flattens distinct histories and identities. The line also signals Jackson’s strategic intent: to translate political injustice into widely felt sympathy, making Indigenous dispossession legible to readers who might otherwise ignore it.