Jane Austin McCurtain

Jane Austin McCurtain (August 19, 1842 – October 27, 1924) was a Choctaw teacher who served as an adviser for several chiefs of the Choctaw Nation.

Biography
Jane Austin McCurtain was born near Fort Towson on August 19, 1842 to Lewis Austin and Mollie Webster. Her parents were members of the Choctaw Nation. From 1853 to 1858 she attended Wheelock Academy and then she travelled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to attend the Edgeworth Seminary. In 1861, she returned to the Choctaw Nation to teach near Doaksville. However, the American Civil War had caused all tribal schools to close. During the war she met Jackson McCurtain, an officer in the Confederate First Regiment of Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles and First Choctaw Battalion, and the couple married in November of 1865. After the war, the couple moved to Kent in present-day Choctaw County. Her husband served as the principal chief of the Choctaw Nation from 1880-1884. In 1883, her family moved to Tuskahoma, Oklahoma (then Indian Territory). She served as an adviser and secretary for her husband during his tenure as chief and during the tenure of his brothers Edmund McCurtain and Green McCurtain. From 1894 to 1898 she served as the superintendent of Jones Academy in Hartshorne, Oklahoma. She died on October 27, 1924 and was buried in Tuskahoma. While she never held political office, she was influential in Choctaw politics and one of the first women active in Choctaw politics.