Narcissa Chisholm Owen (October 3, 1831 – July 11, 1911) was a Native American educator, memoirist, and artist of the late 19th and early 20th century. She was the daughter of Old Settler Cherokee Chief Thomas Chisholm, wife of Virginia state senator Robert L. Owen Sr. and mother of U.S. Senator Robert Latham Owen Jr. and Major William Otway Owen. Narcissa Owen is most recognized for her ''Memoirs'' written in 1907, where she narrates accounts of her life along with the stories and culture of her Cherokee relatives.

Early life and family background

Narcissa Clark Chisholm was born on October 3, 1831 in a log cabin near Webbers Falls(in what was then

Arkansas Territory The Arkansas Territory was a territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1819, to June 15, 1836, when the final extent of Arkansas Territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Arkansas. Arkansas Post was the first territo ...

, to become

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

and later Oklahoma) to Cherokee sub-chief Thomas H. Chisholm (1790–1834) and his Virginia-born wife Malinda Wharton (1803–1864) (great-granddaughter of British Jacobite politician

Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton (21 December 1698 – 31 May 1731) was a powerful Jacobite politician, was one of the few people in English history, and the first since the 15th century, to have been raised to a dukedom whilst still a mino ...

). Narcissa was the youngest of four siblings. Her sister Jane Elizabeth married Caswell Wright Bruton and became Mrs. Jane Bruton. Neither of her brothers, Alfred Finney Chisholm (1830-1862), who married Margaret Harper, and William Wharton Chisholm (1830-1862), who married Susie Pindar, survived the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

. Her paternal grandparents were John D. Chisholm, a Scotsman, and Martha Holmes (Cherokee). Her paternal great-grandfather, John Beamor, emigrated from England to the Carolinas to missionize Cherokees. In 1699, the 23-year-old colonist married 16-year-old Quatsis (Cherokee), sister of Chief Caulunna. Rev. Beamor joined South Carolina's House of Burgesses and owned a plantation and at least 10 enslaved Black people. Around 1730 Beamor traveled with a group of Cherokees to England, where he signed a treaty that was opposed by a Cherokee group led by

Oconostota Oconostota (c. 1710–1783) was a Cherokee '' skiagusta'' (war chief) of Chota, which was for nearly four decades the primary town in the Overhill territory, and within what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. He served as the First Beloved Man of C ...

(Cherokee, c. 1710–1783), a war chief prior to the Revolutionary War and an ancestor to Narcissa. One of Beamor's grandsons, Rev. Jesse Bushyhead (1804–1844), became a noted Baptist preacher, as well as a schoolmaster. By 1812 Thomas Jefferson initiated efforts to forcibly removed Cherokees into Arkansas territory within the Louisiana Purchase. From 1814 to 1817 the Old Settler Cherokees worked to secure title to land in northwestern Arkansas. In 1819 the Old Settlers or Western Cherokees moved westward with enslaved peoples and settled on the Spada and

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

s. By 1819, the Cherokee people included about 15,000 warriors, of which a third (including the Chisholm family) lived west of the Mississippi River. In 1827 the Cherokee Nation held a general convention and adopted a national constitution, at a convention led by John Ross and which elected Charles R. Hicks Principal Chief. Narcissa Owen's father, Thomas Chisholm, a landowner and slave owner, moved his family to Beattie's Prairie (near present-day Jay, Oklahoma) in 1828. In 1834 he is elected as third chief, which Narcissa described in her ''Memoirs'' as the last hereditary war chief. While at a gathering between Cherokees and Plains Indians in Tahlequah, he caught

typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...

. His wife brought him back home, but he did not recover and died in 1834, when Narcissa was only three years old. Narcissa's mother remarried a widower and future judge William Wilson (1811–1897). His first wife was Ruth Drumgould, whose mother was Kah-ta-yah, whom young Narcissa met in 1836 when the grandmother was nearing 100. Young Narcissa also learned about her Cherokee heritage from "Granny Jenny," her father's former nurse and the daughter of enslaved Black people. In 1838, US federal government forced the majority of Cherokee into Indian Territory along the

Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, ...

. Owen witnessed Cherokees, supervised by the US Army, camp on her mother's farm in January 1839. In her memoir, she noted the cruelty of herding human beings accustomed to warm winters through the cold and wind. She described how many refugees were sick, dozens died, and were buried in what had been the family graveyard.

Education and family life

Having lost her father early, Narcissa Chisholm was transferred between family members during her youth. Initially, her elder sister and brothers were educated at Dwight Mission School while her mother raised her. Narcissa attended Rev. Bushyhead's mission school circa 1843. Consistent with her later focus on Cherokee civilization and assimilation, Narcissa's memoirs also related how his son Dennis Bushyhead was educated at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

before being elected Principal Chief of the Cherokees, and that his son Jessy Bushyhead became a physician in Claremore, Indian Territory. Narcissa Chisholm moved to

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Are ...

in 1846 to live with her decade-older sister Jane and attended an academy there run by Melvin Lynde. She then moved to southern Indiana where she attended a school run by John Byers Anderson. She returned to Fort Smith in 1848 and attended a female academy, Mrs. Sawyer's School, in Fayetteville, Arkansas. After graduating with a degree in music and art in 1850, she replaced her music teacher for a year. She also served as a bridesmaid at the wedding of prominent Cherokee Wash Mayes. She then accepted a position teaching music in east

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. While teaching in Masonic High School in Jonesborough,

Washington County, Tennessee Washington County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 133,001. Its county seat is Jonesborough. The county's largest city and a regional educational, medical and commercial center is ...

, she met Virginia-born civil engineer Robert L. Owen Sr., who was surveying a railroad route over the Appalachian Mountains from Lynchburg, Virginia toward

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

. They married on October 4, 1853. They moved near the

Clinch River The Clinch River is a river that flows southwest for more than through the Great Appalachian Valley in the U.S. states of Virginia and Tennessee, gathering various tributaries, including the Powell River, before joining the Tennessee River in Ki ...

while her husband continued his survey work, and then to Lynchburg, where Owen became President of the

Virginia and Tennessee Railroad The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad was an historic gauge railroad in the Southern United States, much of which is incorporated into the modern Norfolk Southern Railway. It played a strategic role in supplying the Confederacy during the American ...

. Narcissa bore two sons: the future U.S. Army Dr. William Otway Owen, born 1854 in Broylesville, Tennessee and future U.S. Senator Robert Latham Owen Jr. born 1856 in Lynchburg, Virginia. She later spent many pages of her ''Memoirs'' describing her Scots-Irish heritage, as well as labeling her Cherokee heritage as "royal," explaining in part the native names she had given her sons: Caulunna (William) and Oconosta (Robert Jr). In Lynchburg, the Owen family and their slaves lived at

Point of Honor Point of Honor is an historic home, now a city museum, located in Lynchburg, Virginia. The property has commanding views of the city and the James River. Its name originated due to the land on which it is built being used as a clandestine due ...

, a mansion overlooking the James River and various railroad lines serving the city. Through his mother and grandmother Betty Lewis, George Washington's niece, Robert Owen inherited several relics of the first President.

Career

Virginia

During the American Civil War, Robert Owen ran the railroad (a crucial supply and troop line for the Confederacy) and his wife and Mrs. Thomas J. Kirkpatrick led the women of St. Paul's Episcopal Church who sewed uniforms and otherwise assisted the same cause. Their sons were too young to fight, but Robert Owen's brother, Dr. William Owen, ran 30 hospitals in the city (a major hospital center for the Confederacy). Lynchburg never fell to Union forces, which withdrew after false reports (for some of which Narcissa Owen later took credit) of Confederate troop strength in the town. Shortly after the war ended, Robert Owen resigned as President of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, after losing a fight against merging the railroad with several owned by former Confederate General

William Mahone William Mahone (December 1, 1826October 8, 1895) was an American civil engineer, railroad executive, Confederate States Army general, and Virginia politician. As a young man, Mahone was prominent in the building of Virginia's roads and railroa ...

. Robert Owen served a term in the

Virginia Senate The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate is composed of 40 senators representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts. The Senate is presided over by the lieutenant governor of Virg ...

, then purchased a plantation near Norfolk, Virginia from a former surveyor buddy, where he died unexpectedly shortly before the

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the ...

. Her husband's death left Narcissa Owen with young children to raise, and what little financial security remained after Robert Owen's death soon vanished. Narcissa Owen returned to teaching to send her sons to college.

Indian Territory

In 1880, Narcissa Owen moved to the Cherokee Nation to teach music at the

Cherokee Female Seminary The Cherokee Female Seminary, (not to be confused with the first Cherokee Female Seminary), was built by the Cherokee Nation in 1889 near Tahlequah, Indian Territory. It replaced their original girls' seminary that had burned down on Easter Sund ...

, the first institution of higher learning for women west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

. Her younger son Robert L. Owen, Jr. had graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1887, and had already moved to Okhahoma to continue a teaching career as orphanage principal, as well as to read law and begin a legal career. Robert Owen became Indian Agent (1885-1889) during the presidency of Democrat

Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...

, then organized the First National Bank of Muskogee in 1890 (and served as its president as well as practiced law for the next decade). In 1895, the 62-year old Narcissa Owen retired from teaching, devoting herself to art and refuting misconceptions of Native Americans as primitive and uncouth. She studied at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

and the

Corcoran Gallery The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Desi ...

, and painted landscapes, portraits, and miniatures using oil paint, as well as used the more traditional women's medium of needlework. Her self-portrait of 1896 displayed above indicates her Victorian-era respectability and wealth. Owen also displayed tapestries at the Oklahoma Territory's pavilion, for she did not believe in hierarchies of artistic medium. Her painting "Thomas Jefferson and His Descendants" won a medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

in 1904. Displayed in the Indian Territory Building throughout the exposition, Narcissa's portraits showcased six generations of Jefferson's descendants: Thomas Jefferson himself, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph, his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph, his great-granddaughter Mrs. R. G. H. Kean, his other great-granddaughter Mrs. John S. Morris, and Adelaide and Pattie Morris. Narcissa's interest in honoring Thomas Jefferson comes from her family's history and friendship with him. In 1808, Owen's father Thomas Chisholm receives the Silver Peace and Friendship Medal from Jefferson for his efforts to unite the Eastern and Western Cherokees. The medal became lost to the family for some time after the passing of Alfred Chisholm in 1862. It wasn't until 1905 that the medal was recovered by a prospector in Wichita Mountains. As a sign of further admiration, Owen later named her ranch near the Little Caney River "Monticello," after Jefferson's home in Virginia. In 1900, her son Robert L. Owen began a six-year legal battle in Oklahoma and Washington, D.C., which ultimately led to a judgment for the balance due the Cherokee from the 1835 treaty ($5 million including interest from 1838). This catapulted him into prominence, and he was elected one of Oklahoma's first two U.S. Senators after the territory achieved statehood on November 17, 1907. Although some Native American leaders disagreed with Robert Owen and had opposed statehood (and some would later disagree with the disbursement of the funds obtained), the

Sequoyah Constitutional Convention The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention was an American Indian-led attempt to secure statehood for Indian Territory as an Indian-controlled jurisdiction, separate from the Oklahoma Territory. The proposed state was to be called the State of Sequoya ...

(which met in Muskogee in 1905) proved a precursor of the statehood convention.

Washington, DC

Narcissa Owen moved to

Washington, D. C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

, where she acted as her son's hostess, and continued working to refute misconceptions of Native Americans. On October 3, 1907, Owen privately published her ''Memoirs'', probably in Washington, D.C., although another copy was found at the multi-ethnic, library-friendly Tuesday Club of

Bartlesville, Oklahoma Bartlesville is a city mostly in Washington County in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 37,290 at the 2020 census. Bartlesville is north of Tulsa and south of the Kansas border. It is the county seat of Washington County. The Ca ...

, which had gathered at her Oklahoma home "Monticello" in honor of her 75th birthday the previous May 1, as mentioned at the Memoir's conclusion. As Owen's modern editor has noted, the ''Memoirs'' combine traditional storytelling modes (and humor, including trickster imagery) and Native perspectives deriving back to

Sarah Winnemucca Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins ( – October 17, 1891) was a Northern Paiute author, activist (lecturer) and educator (school organizer). Her maiden name is Winnemucca. Her Northern Paiute name was Thocmentony, also spelled Tocmetone, which translates ...

's ''Life Among the Paiutes: their wrongs and claims'' (1883) and Lucinda Lowery Hoyt Keys' ''Historical Sketches of the Cherokees'' (1889).

Death and legacy

Narcissa Owen died in Guthrie, Oklahoma on July 12, 1911 (far from her ranch as well as Bartlesville). Her corpse was returned to Lynchburg, Virginia for a funeral at St. Paul's Church, and burial beside her husband at Spring Hill cemetery (where her son Robert would later also be buried). Her former home,

is on the National Register of Historic Places, as is the

. The former is now a city museum for Lynchburg; the latter is a coeducational state university. Her painting of Thomas Jefferson is now in the collection of the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

. Her painting of Sequoyah (a copy of a painting by Charles Bird King) is owned by the

Oklahoma Historical Society The Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS) is an agency of the government of Oklahoma dedicated to promotion and preservation of Oklahoma's history and its people by collecting, interpreting, and disseminating knowledge and artifacts of Oklahoma. ...

, which allows its display at the Oklahoma Judicial Center; the Society also has her self-portrait of 1896 depicted above and gold medal. Several of her other paintings are in the collection of the Oklahoma Museum of Art and

Gilcrease Museum Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gro ...