Catherine Weldon

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Catherine Weldon was a 19th century artist and widow from Brooklyn, New York whose commitment to the cause of Native Americans led her to the Indian territories of the Lakotas in the 1890s.

Weldon was a member of the National Indian Defense Association.

Derek Walcott references her and her life in his play Ghost Dance and also in his epic poem Omeros, where the Native American genocide story is placed alongside that of the death of the Aruacs in St Lucia, in the Caribbean sea. Walcott's treatment of her as a fictional creation seems to be faithful to the historical and biographical accounts that are available. Weldon became private secretary to Sitting Bull during the time that the Ghost Dance movement was making its way through the plains tribes, creating uneasiness among white settlers and frontier military units.

[edit] Further reading

• Pollack, Eileen. Woman Walking Ahead: In Search of Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.