Tsianina: Artist, Trailblazer… Princess?

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The life of Tsianina Redfeather Blackstone was a remarkable one. It was also a life surrounded by myths, many of which she created herself. This episode explores the career of a Cherokee-Creek woman who lived through the violence of US expansion, forged a musical career that took her to the Metropolitan Opera and the Hollywood Bowl, and helped to create an enduring center for the study of Native American cultures and history.

Host: Lucy

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Further Reading

Tsianina Redfeather Blackstone, Where Trails Have Led Me, (1968).

Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, (1970).

Tara Browner, “Native songs, Indianist styles and the process of music idealization,” Opera Indigene: Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures, edited by Pamela Karantonis and Dylan Robinson, (2011).

Charles Wakefield Cadman, Shanewis excerpts.

Vine DeLoria, Jr., Custer Died For Your Sins, (1969).

Nelle Richmond Eberhart, Shanewis (1918), transcribed by John Mucci.

New York Times, “‘Shanewis,” Indian Opera, Captivates,” (March 24, 1918).

Paige Clark Lush, “The All American Other: Native American Musicians and Music on the Circuit Chatauqua,” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture (1900-present), 7:2 (Fall 2008).

Opera Tennessee, Shanewis Campaign.

Red Feather Historical Society, Colorado, “Princess Red Feather.”

Briana A. Thomas, "The Forgotten History of Tsianina Redfeather, the Beloved American Indian Opera Singer," Smithsonian Magazine, (2023).

"Tsianina Redfeather", Paper Canoe Projects.

"Tsianina Redfeather," University of Kent.

Related Content

​This episode is part of our Women's History Collection.

Music: "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin Macleod (www.incompetech.com)