Ely S. Parker and Ulysses S. Grant (Part 2)

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class: Ely S. Parker and Ulysses S. Grant (Part 2)
Hosted by Holly Frey and Tree
Release Date: December 11, 2024

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Introduction and Recap

In the second part of their deep dive into the lives of Ely S. Parker and Ulysses S. Grant, Holly Frey and Tree continue to explore the intricate relationship between these two pivotal figures in American history. Building on the foundational aspects discussed in Part 1, this episode delves into Parker's military career, his significant contributions during the Civil War, his role in the post-war era, and the lasting impact of his legacy.

Parker and Grant's Early Relationship

Timestamp: [04:10]

When Ely S. Parker first encountered Ulysses S. Grant, Grant was navigating life outside the military, employed as a clerk in his family's leather goods store in Galena, Illinois. Despite their humble beginnings and initial reservations—Grant was described as "quiet and reserved," often avoiding small talk and retreating to the back of the store—over time, a profound friendship developed between the two men. Holly Frey notes, “He reminded Parker of the Seneca,” highlighting the mutual respect that formed the bedrock of their relationship.

Civil War Service

Timestamp: [05:04]

With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Grant returned to military service, and Parker sought to join him. Initially denied due to his indigenous heritage, Parker's persistence and Grant's influence eventually secured him a commission as Chief Engineer of the 7th Division under Brigadier General John Eugene Smith on June 4, 1863. Tree emphasizes, "Parker essentially acted as Grant's secretary," leveraging his engineering expertise and impeccable handwriting to support Grant's strategies.

Surrender at Appomattox

Timestamp: [07:38]

One of Parker's most notable contributions occurred at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant, effectively ending the Civil War. When Colonel Theodore S. Bowers struggled to draft the formal surrender terms, the responsibility fell to Parker. Danielle Robay recounts a poignant moment during the surrender: “Lee seemed startled for a moment when he saw Parker. 'I am glad to see one real American here,' Lee said, to which Parker replied, 'We are all Americans.'” This interaction not only underscored Parker's pivotal role but also his ability to bridge cultural divides.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs

Timestamp: [20:13]

Following the war, Ely S. Parker was appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs by President Grant, making him the first Indigenous person to hold a cabinet-level position. His appointment was confirmed by the Senate on April 16, 1869, with a vote of 36 to 12. In this role, Parker sought to implement a four-point plan aimed at establishing "permanent peace between the United States and indigenous nations." This included reforming the Bureau of Indian Affairs, promoting land protections, and providing educational resources and financial support to Indigenous communities.

Policies and Challenges

Timestamp: [25:07]

Parker's policies were a blend of progressive intentions and the prevailing colonialist mindset of the time. He advocated for the "humanization, civilization, and Christianization of the Indians," believing that assimilation was inevitable but should occur "on their own terms." However, his approach was rooted in the belief that "civilization as defined by white norms was superior," reflecting a complex interplay of advocacy and paternalism.

In his 1869 annual report, Parker emphasized the need to respect existing treaties and called for Congress to pass legislation ensuring additional lands for reservations and territorial autonomy. He stated, “The government must take upon themselves the burden of rescuing the Indian from the unhappy state into which he has been thrust.”

Personal Life

Timestamp: [13:57]

Parker's personal life was marked by both triumph and turmoil. In 1867, he married Minnie Sackett, a white woman significantly younger than him. Their union was controversial, sparking rumors and societal backlash, including a dramatic incident where Parker initially failed to appear at their scheduled wedding—leading to wild speculation before the ceremony was quietly rescheduled.

Resignation and Later Years

Timestamp: [44:01]

Parker's tenure as Commissioner of Indian Affairs was fraught with challenges, including accusations of fraud and opposition from the all-white Board of Indian Commissioners, led by William Welsh. Despite investigations that found no evidence of corruption, the mounting pressure and undermining by his peers led Parker to resign on June 29, 1871. In his resignation letter, he poignantly stated, “I cannot, in justice to myself, longer continue to hold the ambiguous position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs.”

After leaving Washington, D.C., Parker and his wife relocated to Fairfield, Connecticut. Financial setbacks, including losses during the Panic of 1873, forced Parker to take up roles far removed from his former stature, such as working as a desk clerk for the New York City Police Department.

Legacy and Controversy

Timestamp: [50:35]

Ely S. Parker's legacy remains a subject of debate. While he pioneered the role of Indigenous individuals in federal positions and advocated for certain protections and autonomy for Indigenous peoples, his policies were also intertwined with assimilationist and paternalistic ideologies that had lasting negative impacts. According to a 1999 documentary, Warrior in Two Worlds, Parker is viewed by some within the Seneca community as having lost his connections to his heritage due to his ambitious pursuits within the federal system.

Historian John Mohawk reflects, “I think he lost his connections to it. I think after he was gone for 30 to 40 years, people felt kind of like he wasn't one of us anymore.” Similarly, Rick W. Hill Sr. describes Parker as someone who "forgot where he came from," navigating the tensions between two worlds without fully belonging to either.

Despite his efforts, Parker's work laid the groundwork for a bureaucracy that would later facilitate policies of assimilation and cultural erasure. His initial advocacy for land protections and education was overshadowed by subsequent government actions that rolled back many of these protections and intensified efforts to dissolve Indigenous sovereignty.

Conclusion

Ely S. Parker's life is emblematic of the complex and often contradictory nature of Indigenous participation in 19th-century American politics. His contributions to the Civil War effort and his groundbreaking role in government service are significant, yet they are accompanied by policies that contributed to the erosion of Indigenous autonomy and culture. Parker's story serves as a poignant reminder of the nuanced and often painful intersections between personal ambition, cultural identity, and systemic oppression.

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Transcript

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[Tree]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Danielle Robay]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tree.

[Tree]

And I'm Holly Frey.

[Danielle Robay]

This is part two of our episode on Ely S. Parker. In part one, we talked about his early life and his many years long involvement in the Tonawanda Seneca's two decade fight to have their reservation land restored in western New York. That effort led to a new treaty being signed between the United States and the tonawanda Seneca in 1857. Parker had also trained as an engineer and that same year he was appointed to work for the Treasury Department overseeing the construction of a customs house in Galena, Illinois. In Galena, he met someone who would become a big part of a lot of the rest of his life, and that was Ulysses S. Grant. That's where we are picking up today. This is a heavier episode than Monday's was. There will be various discussion of warfare and massacres and we'll also be reading from some historical documents that include racist descriptions of indigenous peoples.

[Tree]

When Ely S. Parker met future Civil war general and U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, Grant was working as a clerk in his family's leather goods store. After graduating from West Point and serving in the Mexican American War, Grant had resigned from the army and taken over a farm that his wife's father gave him. That farm failed and Grant started a real estate venture which also failed. Alcohol may have been a factor in all of this. Parker described Grant as reminding him of the Seneca. Apparently, Grant did not like to make small talk with customers. He he was quiet and reserved and he did not open up to people until he got to know them. And when people came into the store, he'd go into the back, which is obviously not a great sales tactic. Over time, these two men became friends.

[Danielle Robay]

Yeah, it absolutely did not seem in this moment that Ely Parker was becoming friends with a future President of the United States. When the Civil war began in 1861, Grant returned to service. Parker went home and asked his father William's permission to join the army, as William had done during the War of 1812. One of Parker's frequently repeated stories was about showing his father an illustration of the US army generals from Harper's Weekly. His father pointed to Grant and said, that man will be the great captain if you follow that man, you too will become a great war captain.

[Tree]

But Parker's efforts to join the military were initially denied because he was indigenous. He tried to recruit a Seneca force for the war, but the army denied that too. Parker even wrote a letter directly to Secretary of State William Seward. According to a letter, Parker wrote to his friend Harriet Maxwell Converse much later on, Seward replied, the fight must be made and settled by the white men alone. Go home, cultivate your farm, and we will settle our own troubles without any Indian aid.

[Danielle Robay]

But the army was short on engineers, and Parker was an engineer. And eventually, apparently thanks to the involvement of Ulysses S. Grant, Parker received a commission to become a captain, which he accepted. On June 4, 1863, he became Chief Engineer of the 7th Division under Brigadier General John Eugene Smith. Parker served in this capacity until 1864, when President Abraham Lincoln appointed Grant as general in chief. Grant then recruited Parker onto his staff as his aide de camp, and Parker was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

[Tree]

Parker essentially acted as Grant's secretary, and his education was a big asset in this role, as was his immaculate handwriting. While he was working as an engineer and a secretary, rather than being in a combat role, his work often took him into the line of fire, such as carrying messages through active battle zones. During his service, Parker also became seriously ill with fever and ague, which has been described as either malaria or dysentery, and it was treated with quinine and whiskey.

[Danielle Robay]

Parker's most memorable act during the Civil War took place at appomattox courthouse on April 9, 1865, when General Robert E. Lee surrendered. Grant's adjutant general, Colonel Theodore S. Bowers, was supposed to write out the formal copy of the terms of surrender. That was in the form of a brief letter written from Grant to Lee. Bauer's penmanship was too poor, or maybe he was just overcome by the magnitude of what was happening. To do this well, I found contradictory descriptions. The task fell instead to Ely S. Parker, who also worked with Grant on drafting those surrender terms.

[Tree]

Another often repeated story from Parker's life was about meeting Lee at the surrender. In Parker's account, Lee seemed startled for a moment when he saw him. Most sources interpret this as Lee initially thinking that Parker was black. But then Lee shook his hand and said, I am glad to see one real American here. And to that, Parker replied, we are all Americans.

[Danielle Robay]

On the day of the surrender, Parker was promoted to brevet Brigadier General. Brevet means that while he was given the higher title, he did not receive the pay or the authority that came with that rank. This was really meant to be an honorific in recognition of outstanding service. This was the highest rank awarded to any indigenous soldier during the Civil War. After serving in the army during the Civil War, Parker was also regarded as a US Citizen when most other indigenous people still were not. Indigenous people in the United States didn't automatically have U.S. citizenship until the Indian Citizen act of 1924. And that was controversial because some indigenous people did not want citizenship or just did not want to have it unilaterally granted to them by the United States.

[Tree]

After the war, Parker worked with the War Department and was part of the Southern Treaty Commission, which renegotiated treaties with tribes that had sided with the Confederacy. Under their new treaties, these tribes were required to free anyone they had enslaved and to be placed under more stringent federal jurisdiction. Some of the terms addressed in these negotiations continue to have ramifications today, including issues of whether the people enslaved by these tribes or today those people's descendants are eligible for tribal citizenship. Delegates from the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations are quoted as saying, the fact that the United States government have seen fit to include a member of an Indian tribe with its commissioners has inspired us with confidence. We are anxious to have the benefit of his presence and counsel in any deliberations or interviews.

[Danielle Robay]

Parker also started working as Grant's military advisor on Indigenous affairs. And in 1867, the two men worked together on a four point plan to establish a, quote, permanent peace between the United States and indigenous nations. There had been a lot of warfare, and a lot of that was still ongoing. And so they were looking for a different way to do things to try to bring that warfare to a stop. This included a plan to reform the Bureau of Indian affairs and to transfer it from the Department of the Interior to the War Department. Parker thought the War Department was a better choice because there were widespread issues with civilian agents working in collusion with traitors to basically do as little as possible while making as much money for themselves as possible. This was a whole network of corruption and graft known as the Indian ring. He thought that soldiers would be motivated by honor and duty and would follow their orders and could also be removed through the chain of command if they did not follow orders.

[Tree]

This may seem surprising considering that army units had already carried out multiple massacres against indigenous peoples, and Parker knew about these massacres and other misconduct. It's possible that Parker believed that a smaller, professionalized peacetime military would be less prone to these kinds of atrocities than a wartime force largely built through conscription. But it's clear that he thought that white settlers were a much bigger threat to indigenous people than the army was, and that the army was more equipped to deal with white encroachment onto indigenous lands than anyone else in the years after the Civil war. The war department also had a more functional, established bureaucracy than any other department that might have been given this responsibility.

[Danielle Robay]

Their plan also involved land protections, educational resources, money, and opportunities provided by the federal government to indigenous people, basically as compensation for centuries of colonialism and dispossession. A board under this plan would oversee distributions of all of this to make sure that everything that was due to the tribes and the nations was delivered promptly and that all of the things that were delivered were suitable, so no sending people things like spoiled food or bad quality goods. In their plan, there would also be a commission involving, quote, such white men as possessed, in large degree, the confidence of their country and a number of the respectable, educated Indians selected from different tribes. And this board would individually meet with every indigenous community to try to work toward peace. Boundaries would be clearly established for native land, and then those boundaries had to be absolutely maintained and respected. But at the same time, under this plan, the people living on that land also had to understand that, quote, civilization was coming, including large numbers of people as the United States expanded westward, and that they would be swept away if they did not adapt.

[Tree]

In 1867, Parker got married to Minnie Sackett, who was described as one of the Belles of Washington, D.C. society. Ely was 39 and Minnie was 18. But for most people, the bigger issue was that Ely was Seneca and Minnie was white. Some people were scandalized, but at the same time, there was another train of thought that supported this marriage, seeing it as an example of a successful, assimilated indigenous man. Grant was supposed to be the best man.

[Danielle Robay]

On December 17, 1867, the church where Ely and Minnie were supposed to get married was packed with onlookers who wanted to see or maybe wanted to disrupt this spectacle of an indigenous man marrying a white woman. But Parker didn't show up. There was a ton of speculation about where he was, including rumors that he had been murdered for intending to marry a white woman. Arthur C. Parker's biography of him claims that Parker had been drugged by a rival.

[Tree]

We don't really know what happened privately between Ely and Minnie after he reappeared, but the wedding was rescheduled for Christmas. Onlookers who arrived at the church of the Epiphany for the second attempt found the doors closed. Ely and Minnie instead got married quietly and privately at a smaller church not far away.

[Danielle Robay]

Ely Parker continued to serve as Grant's secretary until 1869, when Grant retired from the army to become President of the United States. And we will get to that after a sponsor break.

[Holly Frey]

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[Danielle Robay]

On March 4, 1869, Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated as President of the United States. One of his first appointments was Ely S. Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. As we said back at the beginning of part one of this episode, Parker was the first Indigenous person to hold a cabinet level position and the first Indigenous person to serve in this particular role. On April 16, 1869, the Senate confirmed Parker with a vote of 36 to 12. Parker also resigned from the army to take this appointment.

[Tree]

Estimates vary, but there had been millions of people living in North America prior to European colonization, and those estimates range from as little as 2 million people to as many as 20 million. But by the time Parker became Commissioner of Indian affairs, centuries of introduced disease, enslavement, warfare, and genocide had left only about 300,000 indigenous people in the United States. This, of course, does not include Hawaii, which the United States had not annexed yet. And Parker had very little information to go on about Alaska, which the United States purchased from Russia only two years before he took on this role.

[Danielle Robay]

The ongoing wars between the United States and indigenous nations were destructive. They were expensive. They were awful in all ways. And Grant and Parker started trying to implement many of the proposals they'd worked on together while serving in the army to try to bring those wars to an end. Parker got the War department to assign 68 officers to the Indian affairs office and also appointed 18 Quakers to work as Indian Agents. A federal delegation was sent to the west to meet with nations that were still at war with the United States to try to find out what it would take to reach some kind of settlement. And Ely was one of the members of that delegation.

[Tree]

Ely had already concluded that the United States entire Indian affairs system was inefficient and flawed. Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate commerce with the tribes. And Congress had passed various laws about that commerce, specifically in what was then known as Indian Country. Traders within this system were federally licensed, and Indian Agents and superintendents were political appointees who were not paid very much. That Indian ring we referenced earlier was a corrupt system meant to enrich both the traders and the agents. Parker started working on efforts to get the military to assume most of the responsibility for all of this.

[Danielle Robay]

I will add that people do use the term Indian country still, but this area is now states. It was not states at the time. Parker also thought the federal government had an obligation toward indigenous peoples who had been progressively stripped of their land, their opportunities, and their autonomy. As we mentioned before, he thought it was inevitable that indigenous peoples would ultimately assimilate with white society. His writing on this absolutely mirrors the prevailing view of a lot of reformers, including reformers who genuinely wanted to help Indigenous peoples as well as some Indigenous leaders. And that view was that indigenous peoples needed to be Christianized and, quote, civilized.

[Tree]

This was also happening alongside the post Civil War Reconstruction, which often had a similarly paternalistic attitude toward free black people and an ultimate goal of their assimilation to white norms. It's clear from Parker's personal and professional writings that he had come to believe that civilization as defined by white norms was superior and that by extension, that the people who conformed best to those norms were also superior. This applied to how he wrote and spoke about both black and indigenous people.

[Danielle Robay]

At the same time. He thought this inevitable assimilation should happen according to the tribes and nation's own timelines and on their own terms. So he thought any federal efforts should be focused on assistance and incentives, not on coercion or punitive measures. And there were aspects of this that mirrored what we talked about in our recent episodes on Sarah Winnemucca. While Parker was focused on, in his words, the quote, humanization, civilization and Christianization of the Indians, he also thought that the tribes should be able to retain their languages and their heritage, and that they should have autonomy and respect and defense of their reservation lands.

[Tree]

In the words of Arthur Parker, two ideas controlled his policy. The first was to make the Indian himself see his duty in becoming a useful and constructive member of society, to make him economically independent, contributing his share to the sum total of human welfare. The second idea was to impress the various departments of the government with the idea that the people of the United States owed the Indians a clean administration of their affairs. And not only that, but that they must take upon themselves the burden of rescuing the Indian from the unhappy state into which he had been thrust and of lifting him up into an understanding of civilization and Christianity.

[Danielle Robay]

In 1869, Parker filed what was to be his first annual report on Indian Affairs. It began with a 45 page summary and it was followed by another 550 pages of additional documents and correspondence. This report really highlights how he was making recommendations that he really thought would help indigenous peoples living in US Territory, while also basing these recommendations on racist ideas and a perception of European culture as superior to indigenous culture. He characterizes indigenous peoples as ignorant and superstitious, especially those who had not yet been forced to live on reservations and adopt European style farming methods as a way to sustain themselves.

[Tree]

At the same time, he advocated for more land for indigenous peoples, including additional lands for reservations that needed it and new reservations for peoples that did not have one yet. He called on Congress to pass appropriate legislation to provide for these people, quote, until they become capable of taking care of themselves.

[Danielle Robay]

He also offered an update on what came to be known as the peace policy, describing a, quote, different class of men being appointed as superintendents and agents due to the dishonesty and the inefficiency of the men who had been holding those roles in the past. He wrote, quote, the experiment has not been sufficiently tested to enable me to say definitely that it is a success for but a short time has elapsed since these friends and officers entered upon duty. But so far as I can learn, the plan works advantageously and will probably prove a positive benefit to the service. And the indications are that the interests of the government and the Indians will be subserved by an honest and faithful discharge of duty. Fully answering the expectations entertained by those who regard the measure as wise and proper.

[Tree]

Another of Parker's recommendations was that the United States respect and uphold treaties with indigenous peoples that were already in place. And ratify any treaties that had been negotiated over the previous two years. But he recommended against negotiating new treaties. He argued that a treaty was a compact between two or more sovereign powers, each possessing sufficient authority and force to compel a compliance with the obligations incurred. He went on to say that the tribes were not sovereign nations capable of making treaties, as none of them have an organized government of such inherent strength. As would secure a faithful obedience of its people. In the observance of compacts of this character, they are held to be the wards of the government. And the only title the law concedes to them to the lands they occupy or claim is a mere possessory one. But because treaties have been made with them generally for the extinguishment of their supposed absolute title. To land inhabited by them or over which they roam, they have become falsely impressed with the notion of national independence. It is time that this idea should be dispelled. And the government cease the cruel farce. Of thus dealing with its help helpless and ignorant wards.

[Danielle Robay]

I will say the United States also did not have a government of such inherent strength. That it could secure a faithful obedience of its people in observation of these treaties. But aside from that, some historians have interpreted this as Parker really buying into the federal government's colonial efforts. And opinions on whether indigenous people were capable of governing themselves. The the federal government thought they were not. But others have seen it more as an acknowledgement of how absolutely destructive that colonial effort had already been to the nations that had maintained their own sovereignty. And their own systems of government for centuries before colonization. It's also been noted that Parker clearly understood. That the United States could never be fully trusted to uphold these treaties. So like like, why go through the farce of making more of them if that was the case? Congress did formally outlaw the making of new treaties. Under the Indian Appropriations Bill of 1871, which Grant signed into law.

[Tree]

In this report, Parker went on to say, quote, many good men, looking at this matter only from a Christian point of view. Will perhaps say that the poor Indian has been greatly wronged and ill treated. That this whole country was once his of which he has been despoiled. And that he has been driven from place to place. Until he has hardly left to him a spot where to lay his head. This indeed may be philanthropic and humane, but the stern letter of the law admits of no such conclusion. And great injury has been done by the government in deluding these people into the belief of there being independent sovereignties, while they were at the same time recognized only as its dependents and wards. As civilization advances, and their possessions of land are required for settlement, such legislation should be granted to them, as a wise, liberal, and just government ought to extend to subjects holding their dependent relation. In regard to treaties now in force, justice and humanity require that they be promptly and faithfully executed, so that the Indians may not have cause of complaint or reason to violate their obligations by acts of violence and robbery.

[Danielle Robay]

He also addressed the subject of people of African descent who had been enslaved by one of the tribes. As we said earlier, an issue that has continued to be relevant through to today. Quote Attention is invited to the condition of the freedmen among the Choctaws and some of the other tribes in the Indian Territory, whose status as slaves became changed by the results of the late war, and who now appeal to the government for kind treatment and protection. Denied the rights and privileges of all the members of the tribes with whom they reside. Oppressed and persecuted, this people have claims which should not injustice be longer disregarded. They prefer to remain with those among whom they were raised, but fear losing the protection of the laws of the United States.

[Tree]

Parker's summary also walked through the status of the different tribes and nations across the country. Here's how he described his own people. New York Indians, residing on several reservations in the state of New York. Number 4991 against 4136 reported last year, an increase accounted for by including the St. Regis Indians who were not enumerated in the census of 1868. These tribes, the descendants of the powerful Six nations who filled so large a space in the early history of this country, have to a great extent, if not altogether abandoned the habits and customs of their forefathers, and are now steadily and successfully following the pursuits of a higher style of life, many of whom will compare favorably in their attainments with the whites by whom they are surrounded. Their schools, farms, and houses, regard for morality and religion, are the evidence of a real and marked advancement in the scale of a Christian civilization. An increase of interest is manifested in reference to education. On the several reservations, 26 schools are in operation, besides which there is a large institution known as the Thomas Orphan Asylum, established for their benefit, and a large manual labor school is about to be opened upon the Tonawanda Reservation. The senate having passed an act appropriating $3,000 for that object, the Indians giving the necessary land. Therefore, I would call attention to the interesting report herewith from their agent, Captain Ames, United States army, in regard to the agricultural fairs held by these people Friday.

[Danielle Robay]

This report was of course, not the only thing Parker did as Commissioner of Indian affairs, and we will have more after another sponsor break.

[Holly Frey]

All right, we're all set for the party. I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe, and paired all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses. And I plugged in the Partisan.

[Tree]

Partisan.

[Holly Frey]

It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails, plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites too. I just got it for 50 off, so how about a Cosmopolitan or a Mistletoe Margarita?

[Tree]

I'm thirsty.

[Holly Frey]

Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength and wow, it's beginning to.

[Tree]

Feel more seasonal in here already.

[Holly Frey]

If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a Bartesian, because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds. And I just got it for $50 off.

[Tree]

Tis the season to be jollier.

[Holly Frey]

Add some holiday flavor to every celebration.

[Tree]

With the sleek, sophisticated Home Cocktail maker bar. Get $50 off any cocktail maker at bartisian.com cocktail that's B A R T E S I A N COM Cocktail.

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[Malcolm Gladwell]

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[Tree]

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[Danielle Robay]

This is.

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[Danielle Robay]

On January 23, 1870, Major Eugene M. Baker of the US Second Cavalry attacked a pagan encampment on the Marias river in Montana. Most of the people at this camp were women, children and elders who had quarantined themselves due to a smallpox outbreak. Baker had been told that these people were stealing horses, and in response, he attacked the camp before dawn, while almost everyone was asleep. His force massacred more than 150 people, some sources say more than 200, and they took at least 150 people prisoner. Afterward, Baker's force destroyed the camp's food and lodges, claiming this was now necessary because of the smallpox outbreak, and they also captured hundreds of Horses. This would have been an atrocity under any circumstance. But to make things worse, Piegan Chief Heavy Runner carried papers specifying that he was on peaceful terms with the United States, and he was bringing those papers to the soldiers when they shot and killed him.

[Tree]

Initially, the army covered up this massacre, but eventually Lieutenant William B. Pease reported it. In the aftermath, John A. Logan, chair of the Committee on Military affairs, requested that the Bureau of Indian affairs be kept in the Department of the Interior rather than being moved into the War Department, as Parker had been proposing. Meanwhile, Parker still continued to defend the army, including in this massacre, as the best choice.

[Danielle Robay]

I think this massacre could be its own episode for sure, beyond this one. Another of Parker's efforts in 1870 involved negotiations with Oglala Chief Red Cloud and Lakota Chief Spotted Tail. The Oglala and Lakota are both part of the Ocheri Sikohen, also called the Sioux, who were party to the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail both believed that the terms of this treaty had given them right to a reservation in their ancestral homeland. They thought that because that was how it had been explained to them. But now they were being told they had to move hundreds of miles east to the banks of the Missouri River. Parker, hearing about this, invited them to Washington, and when their delegation arrived, he heard them out and arranged a meeting with Grant. Parker had to explain to them that the treaty did not give them the right to a reservation in their ancestral homeland, as the interim interpreters had told them that it would. But it did give them the right to hunt there. Parker told them that there was nothing in the treaty to prohibit them from also living on their hunting grounds. So this indigenous delegation really saw this as a victory. But then they return home to find that nothing had actually changed in practice. This treaty is one of many things in this episode that is still relevant today with cases going all the way up to the Supreme Court during our lifetimes.

[Tree]

Also in 1870, Parker visited indigenous communities and attended a general council in Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. He hoped to work toward establishing a government for Indian Territory that would be exclusively made up of Native people who would govern themselves and have autonomy over their own affairs. He conceived this as an eventual home for all Indigenous peoples in the United States which would eventually become its own state.

[Danielle Robay]

Unsurprisingly, there were people who opposed Parker in his role as Commissioner of Indian affairs due to racism or to his policies or a combination of both. And when he returned to Washington after this council, he learned that William Welsh, chair of the Board of Indian commissioners, had accused him of fraud, claiming that Parker was part of the Indian ring he had been trying to dismantle.

[Tree]

Unlike the bilateral commission that Parker had envisioned, the Board of Indian commissioners was made up of white men only. And unlike Parker, who advocated for tribes and nations to progress toward assimilation on their own terms and with their own autonomy, Welsh and the board were focused on getting native people to assimilate by any means necessary as fast as possible. When Parker was creating his first report in 1869, the board was creating its own document that was focused on forced assimilation, further concentrating indigenous people into smaller reservations and discouraging what it called tribal relations, which meant any semblance of tribal sovereignty. In addition to this, Congress passed legislation prohibiting army officers from serving in the Bureau of Indian affairs and limited the president's authority.

[Danielle Robay]

In the winter of 1871, Parker was called before the House of Representatives on 13 different corruption charges relating to things like how much he had spent on food and supplies and whether that food and supplies had been needed. While the investigation found, quote, much to criticize and condemn, it found no evidence of fraud or corruption. But in the face of ongoing scrutiny and a board that was really continually undermining him, Parker resigned on June 29, 1871. In his resignation letter, he said that Congress had divested his office of its importance, leaving the commissioner of Indian affairs as a clerk to the Board of Indian commissioners. He wrote, quote, I would gladly and willingly do anything in my power to aid in forwarding and promoting to a successful issue the president's wife, wise and beneficent Indian policy, But I cannot, in justice to myself, longer continue to hold the ambiguous position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

[Tree]

After this, Parker left Washington, D.C. he and his wife moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, where she had family, and they basically started over. He went into business and commuted back and forth to New York City, and he initially did quite well, but then lost almost everything in the panic of 1873.

[Danielle Robay]

By 1876, Parker was basically out of money. After years away from the field of engineering, his knowledge was no longer up to date. In his words, quote, the profession ran away from me. So he became a desk clerk for the New York City police Department, and he also did some public speaking.

[Tree]

Ely and Minnie had a daughter named Maud. In 1878, she was raised without any connection to the Seneca. Ely and Minnie's marriage had also been controversial among the Seneca because Seneca kinship lines are matriarchal. So by marrying a white woman, any children Ely had with Minnie would not be considered Seneca.

[Danielle Robay]

In 1881, Parker met Harriet Maxwell Converse. She was an author poet. He described Minnie as the love of his life, but he and Harriet developed a really deep friendship. Arthur Parker's account describes Harriet and her husband Frank as being friends with both Ely and Minnie Parker. So the four of them were all very close. In a lot of his letters, Ely addresses Harriet as my dear cousin. Through their correspondence, Harriet developed a really deep interest in the Seneca, and Parker started to rekindle his own sense of himself as Indigenous. Over the course of their friendship, Harriet became a vocal advocate for the Seneca and the Haudenosaunee more broadly, and she was eventually adopted into the Seneca Nation as her father and grandfather had been in earlier years.

[Tree]

Parker's letters to Converse are often very reflective and introspective. He expresses a lot of disappointment in himself and a sense that he wasn't sure whether the actions that he had taken in his life had been the correct ones. There's simultaneously a sense of pride in what he accomplished and a lot of regret. Around 1885, he wrote to her, quote, I have little or no faith in the American Christian civilization, Methods of healing the Indians of this country. It has not been honest, pure or sincere. Black deception, damnable frauds and persistent oppression has been its characteristics. And its religion today is that the only good Indian is a dead one. In another letter, he described himself as haunted by the accolades of his youth, writing, quote, I have lost my identity and look about me in vain for my original being. I am pursued by a still small voice constantly echoing, Thou art a genius great and powerful.

[Danielle Robay]

Over the course of these letters, Parker seemed to come to see his earlier life as a chief as truer and more important than his later life as an engineer, a soldier, and a part of the federal government. He became increasingly focused on the idea of indigenous people needing to retain their own languages and traditions and identities. But he was never able to put these ideas into practice with his own people. He had developed diabetes and kidney disease, and he also had a series of strokes. His diabetes diagnosis actually came from Dr. J.H. salisbury, who he saw at Harriet's urging. We talked about Salisbury in our fourth installment of our eponymous foods episodes. He is the namesake of Salisbury steak. Dr. Salisbury's health recommendations included an all meat diet, and in one of Parker's letters to Converse, he describes being placed on a diet of beef and water.

[Tree]

Ely Samuel Parker died on August 31, 1895, at the age of 67. He was buried at Oaklawn Cemetery in Fairfield, Connecticut. With full military honors. Also present were delegates from the grand army of the Republic and the New York Police Department, and elders and clan mothers of the Haudenosaunee nations.

[Danielle Robay]

On January 20, 1879, with Minnie's permission, he was exhumed and reinterred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. In Haudenosaunee ancestral homeland. Seneca orator and leader Red Jacket had also been reinterred there. Their burial places are next to one another.

[Tree]

After Parker's death, Minnie was left without many resources. Aside from a war Widow's pension of $8 a month, she sold off a lot of his possessions in order to survive, including the Red Jacket Peace Medal, which she sold to the Buffalo Historical Society. She also sold his copy of the Surrender Terms from Appomattox for $2,000 to the loyal Legion, whose members had raised money for it. Congress later increased her pension to $30 a month. She eventually remarried to James Talmadge Van Rensselaer, and although he died only a couple of years later, her inheritance from that marriage made her a lot more financially comfortable.

[Danielle Robay]

Ely Parker's legacy continues to be really controversial. He's one of many 19th century reformers and advocates who wanted to help Indigenous peoples, but whose methods of helping were based in racism and were ultimately destructive. He had advocated for some degree of autonomy for Indigenous peoples, and he had stressed the need to protect Indigenous lands. But less than a decade before his death, federal policy toward Indigenous people shifted from moving people to reservations to breaking up those reservations and forcing people to assimilate. We've talked about a lot of things related to that on the show before. His efforts to protect Indigenous lands were really starting to be rolled back while he was still alive. The bureaucracy that Parker helped to establish at the Bureau of Indian affairs also really helped facilitate the United States effort to rid itself of its Indigenous population through assimilation and cultural genocide in later years.

[Tree]

In the 1999 documentary Warrior in Two Worlds, Ely S. Parker is described as being perceived as a sellout among the Six nations of the Haudenosaunee. In an interview conducted for that documentary, the late Seneca historian John Mohawk describes him as ambitious with that ambition leading to the loss of his Seneca identity. Mohawk went on to say, quote, I don't think he lost his loyalty to the Seneca world. I think he lost his connections to it. And I think after he was gone for 30 to 40 years, people felt kind of like he wasn't one of us anymore. I think he felt like he wasn't one of them anymore.

[Danielle Robay]

Tuscarora historian and artist Rick W. Hill Sr. Was also interviewed for this documentary and similarly to described Parker as failing because he forgot where he came from and what he was about. Hill also described finding legitimacy both in the idea that Parker was a traitor because there was a betrayal to his people and that he was trying to blend these two worlds and that there's also a lesson that in 2020, the.

[Tree]

Seneca Nation requested that the Red Jacket Peace Medal be returned from the Buffalo History Museum, and that medal was repatriated in May of 2021.

[Danielle Robay]

So that is Ely S. Parker. I feel like we've had two in quick succession, complicated Indigenous figures, yes, whose complexities are interconnected with one another. I also have some listener mail. This is from Alana, who wrote after a conversation that Holly and I had about the terms Britain and Ireland and British Isles and how neither of them really sums up everything perfectly. And so the email says hello. Just an additional note to help with what term to use for the islands here. Writing from Ireland, a term we use is British and Irish Isles, as it includes all the small and not so small islands around both Ireland and Britain Britain. It's also the term used by the rugby team, the British and Irish Lions, when all the nations here team up into a super team. I hope that helps. I'm an American who's been living in Ireland for seven plus years now and it took me a while to get a handle on all the terms. Hope you're keeping well in these difficult times. Kind regards, Alana, thank you very much for this. And now that you've said that, boy, that seems obvious to me that British and Irish Isles also works really well. So thank you for that. If you'd like to send us a note about this or any other podcast or history [e-mail] and you can subscribe to our show on the iheartradio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Here's to the season. From hanging ornaments in matching pajamas to building gingerbread houses with extra icing and staying up late to wrap gifts and watch movies, these traditions make the holidays truly special, and through it all, the Chinette brand is there to share in the joy. With the Chinate Crystal Collection, Holiday tables are perfectly coordinated, allowing for excellence with less cleanup so everyone can focus on what really matters. Here's to the traditions that bring everyone together year after year. Here's to us. All of us. Find a local [e-mail] all right, we're.

[Holly Frey]

All set for the party. I've trimmed the tree, hung the mistletoe, and pared all those weird shaped knives and forks with the appropriate cheeses. And I plugged in the Bartish Bartesian. It's a home cocktail maker that makes over 60 premium cocktails, plus a whole lot of seasonal favorites, too. I just got it for 50 off, so how about a Cosmopolitan or a mistletoe margarita?

[Tree]

I'm thirsty.

[Holly Frey]

Watch. I just pop in a capsule, choose my strength, and wow, it's beginning to.

[Tree]

Feel more seasonal in here already.

[Holly Frey]

If your holiday party doesn't have a bartender, then you become the bartender. Unless you've got a Bartesian, because Bartesian crafts every cocktail perfectly in as little as 30 seconds. And I just got it for $50 off.

[Tree]

Tis the season to be jollier. Add some holiday flavor to every celebration with the sleek, sophisticated home cocktail maker Bartisian. Get $50 off any cocktail maker at bartesian.com cocktail that's B A R T E S I A N dot com.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

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[Savannah Guthrie]

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