The Rift Widens

While still a Civil War soldier, Ely Parker wrote his brother that he proposed "by and by to come home and settle down once more on my farm, and go to work as all honest men do. I want you to lay up in your mind the conviction that I am coming home again to gladden by my presence the heart of such relations and friends as think well of me." But Ely would never return to live at Tonawanda. When the war ended, he followed Grant to Washington. A newspaper report noted his presence for the review of troops on May 26, 1865: "Beside General Grant is a huge Colonel, dusky-faced, and with such high cheekbones that we recognize him at once for an aboriginal. He is one of Grant's favored aides, and has so intensely imbibed the spirit of the North, that a few days ago he said: "You white men are Christians, and may forgive the murder (of President Abraham Lincoln) I am of a race which never forgives the murder of a friend.""

Ely Parker had spent a great deal of time with Abraham Lincoln at General Grant's Union headquarters at City Point, Virginia. The President would often sit by Parker and go over telegrams as they came in, updating the war's progress. Parker said he and Lincoln had numerous conversations about federal Indian policies, and their acquaintance was strong enough that after Appomattox, he went to the White House to show Lincoln his Red Jacket medal. Ely was one of the last to see the President alive. His visit was on Good Friday, the same day Lincoln was shot while attending a play at Ford's Theatre.

Parker remained in the nation's capital, assisting in the administration of the post-war demobilization. Grant had him transferred from the Volunteers into the regular Army and through a series of brevets he became a Brigadier General. Parker was also called upon to exercise his knowledge in Indian affairs. In 1865, he was part of a commission sent to meet with native nations that had allied themselves with the Confederacy. In 1866, he aided in the investigation of the Fetterman massacre, in which 81 U.S. soldiers were ambushed and killed outside Fort Phil Kearney by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians. Parker concluded that the commander of the fort had exercised little discipline with his garrison, and had taken few precautions against Indian hostilities. He faulted Fetterman for disobeying orders, and his commander for not sending reinforcements until it was too late. Parker further stated that the hostile Sioux (Lakota) "will not come to terms and they should be promptly and severely punished." As federal "peace" commissioners approached meetings with the Brule and Ogalala Sioux, they tapped Parker to speak for them. He introduced himself to the 2,500 Indians present as the spokesman for their "great grandfather, the President of the United States," who was "sick in his mind" by the Indian warfare. In remarks recorded by the New York Herald, Parker said President Johnson "would like to have all the Indians live together as good neighbors, but to do this, they must have a permanent home. They must have a place where the white man will not disturb or molest them."

At the same time Ely's diplomatic efforts were winning praise in Washington, his rift with the Tonawanda Senecas was widening. In a letter to his brother Nic, Parker said he was tired of the Tonawandas' "unending whims and imaginary troubles. I could without expense to my people attend to their necessary business. If however, they prefer to have it their own way, I shall not complain or interfere. You know that our family has always been grossly maligned by the Indians, and I for one want to give them as little cause as possible for doing so."

"Ely Parker knew he was resented. They (the Senecas) didn't like his elevation as a Sachem and they didn't like his elevation as an academic. And while they had a great appreciation of his war exploits, that wasn't sufficient to undermine the jealousies. In the letter to Nic, he tells him that he's the person that Grant and the administration -- all the administration -- consult about American Indian affairs. And when it comes to Tonawanda and Iroquois matters, he's the consultant. He explains to Nic that every question, whether it's a new church bell or a steeple or an improvement or an increase in annuities, comes to him for decision. And whatever he decides is government policy. But he says to his brother, don't tell any Indians that, they are too ignorant to understand what I am doing. That's his word: "ignorant. What does he mean by ignorant? He means physically, these people do not understand the world that he's moving in, and moving in still for them. They simply have no capacity to understand where he's at or what he's doing. They don't speak English; remember, as late as his death (1895) two-thirds of Seneca people did not write or read English. A substantial portion, probably over half, didn't speak English. There's no way they could literally know what he is doing, or appreciate it. That's what he meant by ignorant. Their worlds were separate, and he was on the other side of a world that the great majority of his people had not crossed into.

And certainly in terms of his own people he got above himself. Why? Because he was a person of enormous talent, and people recognized and fostered that talent, they appreciated it. They supported it, educationally, materially, emotionally. They kept telling him how great he was. They knew he was great and they said he was great. His whole life people came to up to him and said, you're a great man. This is not a diet that leads to humility or modesty in a people in which leaders were supposed to be modest; more modest than other people. And were supposed to be poorer than other people. In which people are not supposed to get above themselves. Yes, he's a tall tree. He's one of the Sachems, but all of the tall trees are supposed to be of equal height. He's gotten in terms of his own people, an over-swelled head of no small proportions and that's traditionally resented, as well as personally a subject of jealousy."

Stephen Saunders Webb, Ph.D.
Maxwell School, Syracuse University

The breach with the Tonawandas widened in 1867, when Ely married Minnie Orton Sackett. He was 39, she was an 18-year-old white woman, a capital city belle. Traditional Haudenosaunee oppose interracial marriages because cultural descent is matriarchal. By marrying a white woman, Parker disenfranchised any children he may have had from ever being enrolled as a Seneca.

Washington society was also taken aback by the union. Ely and Minnie had to endure disapproving stares and racist comments printed in capital papers. Yet none of that impaired Parker's political ascension; in 1869, Ulysses S. Grant was sworn in as President of the United States, and one of his first acts was to appoint Ely S. Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

"No Native American had ever held that position before. It was brand new. But it was well-received. The Senate without hesitation confirmed it."

William Armstrong
Parker Biographer

"As Commissioner of Indian Affairs, first of all he continued the program that he had laid out to Grant and to Lincoln at the Army Headquarters in City Point in 1864 and '65, first of all the Peace Policy. A policy of moving from military extermination of Native people, to establishing peace with them."

Stephen Saunders Webb, Ph.D.
Maxwell School, Syracuse University

"I believe that his politics are right, that if you fulfill your promises to Indians, you deliver the treaty goods, you deliver food, the services you promise, you won't have a war with Indians. A lot of people don't realize that's what it was about back then."

Rick Hill Sr. (Tuscarora)
Chair: Haudenosaunee Standing Committee on NAGPRA

"His idea was, let's put these people on reservations, they're in a controlled space. But it was important not only to put them in this controlled space, but let's educate them. Let's teach them the things they need to know in order to survive and move into the next century."

Jare Cardinal
Rochester Museum & Science Center

"He said that the way for Indians to survive was to become humanized. What was it that he didn't see in us that was human? Become civilized; how come he didn't think we were good enough as we were. And then ultimately to become Christianized. Now those were the things that he said were standard Indian policy. All the reformers believed that. I think in one sense Parker was saying that because he thought that was what the white man wanted to hear."

Rick Hill Sr. (Tuscarora)
Chair: Haudenosaunee Standing Committee on NAGPRA

When Parker took office, the so-called Indian Wars were at crisis levels; in 1868 it was estimated that they cost the U.S. government one million dollars per Indian killed. Western Indian nations were trying to defend their homelands against a tidal wave of white settlers drawn to the frontier by the discovery of gold, a new transcontinental railroad, and the Homestead Act. Parker's goal was simple: peace at all costs, and his philosophy and policies were outlined in his first Commissioner's report of 1869. Although his efforts slowed the pace of the wars, Parker incited controversy with an 1870 show of force. A Piegan Band of Blackfeet Indians had robbed and killed white settlers and Parker sent the information on to the War Department with a request that prompt measures be taken. U.S. troops headed to Montana led by an Army Colonel and Civil War veteran named Eugene Baker.

"And about 170 men, women and children were killed, at a time when this particular town of Piegan people had tried to signal to the attacking United States forces that they were neutral, they were pro-United States, they were not enemies. But Baker continued to fire into their town and they slaughtered all of these people. It was such and atrocity that Congress investigated it. And during that investigation, because of this loyalty that had developed during the Civil War, Ely Parker sided with Colonel Baker. He said that it was the Indians' fault, they had brought it on themselves."

Robert W. Venables, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer, American Indian Studies
Cornell University

"You can look at Parker's years as Commissioner in two ways: Ely was using his abilities and powers to do what he thought best to help stop the wars, to help Indians out west adapt to change. But if you look at Ely Parker from the standpoint of the Senecas, and perhaps the Indian nations in confusion out west, he was a traitor. He was no longer a cultural bridge. He was someone who had accepted white society and the values of white society as being all important, all encompassing and he had forgotten who he was. He was not someone you could rely on to help you survive into the future."

Jare Cardinal
Rochester Museum & Science Center