Narcissa Chisholm Owen
| Narcissa Chisholm Owen | |
|---|---|
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| Born | October 3, 1831 Webbers Falls, Cherokee Nation, United States |
| Died | July 12, 1911 Washington, D.C. |
| Nationality | American, Cherokee |
| Known for | painting, fingerweaving, tapestry |
| Awards | Louisiana Purchase Exposition Medal |
Narcissa Chisholm Owen (October 3, 1831 – July 11, 1911) was an American educator, memoirist and artist of the late 19th and early 20th century. The "mother of Cherokee painting.", 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.
Born on October 3, 1831 in a log cabin near Webbers Falls (in what was then Arkansas Territory, soon became Indian Territory and would become Oklahoma) to Cherokee chieftain 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), Narcissa had several siblings. Her sisters married and became Mrs. Jane Bruton and Mrs. Emma Breedlove. Neither of her brothers, Alfred Finney Chisholm (1830-1862) and William Wharton Chisholm (1830-1862) survived the American Civil War, perhaps because the Battle of Beattie's Prairie was fought in Delaware County, Oklahoma on October 22, 1862.
Thomas Chisholm had owned land and slaves in Alabama, but had moved to Arkansas, and then moved his family to Beattie's Prairie. He caught typhoid fever during a gathering at Talequah. His wife brought him back home, but he did not recover, dying in 1834 when Narcissa was only 3 years old, shortly before eastern Cherokee moved through the area, forced from their homes along the Trail of Tears. Narcissa later wrote of witnessing a group of Army-supervised Cherokee camp on their mother's farm in January 1839, noting the cruelty of herding human beings accustomed to warm winters through the cold and wind. She described how many refugees were sick and dozens died and were buried in what had been the family graveyard.
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