Ely S Parker (1828 - 1895)
Grant's advisers, with Parker at the left
August 31st 1895: Ely Parker dies
On this day in 1895, Ely S. Parker, the first Native American commissioner of Indian Affairs, died in Connecticut aged sixty-seven. Born Hosanoanda at Indian Falls, an Indian reservation near Akron, New York, he was the son of a Seneca chief. Taking the name Ely Samuel Parker, he studied at a Baptist boarding school and eventually mastered English and became an interpreter, assisting Seneca tribal delegations to Washington DC seeking to regain land titles. He went on to study to be a lawyer, but was denied admittance to the New York state bar as Indians were not classed as citizens of the United States; Parker instead became a civil engineer. At the outbreak of Civil War, Parker struggled to receive an army commission, but eventually joined the war effort on the Union side, quickly climbing the ranks and becoming General Ulysses S. Grant’s military secretary. In this role, Parker drafted the terms of Confederate surrender at Appomattox, where General Robert E. Lee said to Parker “I am glad to see one real American here”, to which Parker replied “We are all Americans.” Parker’s friendship with Grant continued - the general was best man at his wedding - and in 1869 President Grant made Parker Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The first Native American to hold the office, Parker spearheaded Grant’s ‘Peace Policy’, which aimed to end the constant Indian wars and assimilate Native Americans through reservations and boarding schools. However, Parker was accused of corruption and resigned from office. After pursuing a career in business, Ely Parker died in August 1895.
“A son will be born to you who will be distinguished among his nation as a peacemaker…he will be a wise white man, but will never desert his Indian people or lay down his horns as a great Iroquois chief…His sun will rise on Indian land and set on the white man’s land.”
- a Seneca dream interpreter to Parker’s mother shortly before his birth
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