Ely S. Parker and the Tonawanda Seneca (Part 1)

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. We have mentioned President Ulysses S. Grant's Peace policy a few times on the show. Most recently that was in our episodes on Sarah Winnemucca. And we've described this as a policy of replacing the existing Indian agent system with Christian missionaries, which was in an effort to maintain peace between the United States and Indigenous peoples and to reduce corruption. And that's really how Grant's peace policy is usually summed up. When it's summed up in just a couple of sentences, but it really does not capture the whole of that policy or any of the context around how or how much it was actually implemented. And one of the people who was instrumental in both the creation of this policy and its initial implementation was Commissioner of Indian Affairs Eli S. Parker. Parker was Seneca, and he was the first Indigenous person to be placed in a cabinet level position in the United States. Also the first Indigenous person to serve as Commissioner of Indian affairs. His life and his legacy have some similar complexities to what we talked about in our episode on Sarah Winnemaca, maybe even more so, and he is who we are going to be talking about both today and in our episode on Wednesday. Eli Samuel Parker was born sometime in eighteen twenty eight, as his parents were returning to the Tonawanda Reservation from Buffalo, New York, where they had gone to trade and buy supplies. His father, William or Jono Eistoa, had been a war chief and was the first Seneca to enlist with the US Army during the War of eighteen twelve. His mother, Elizabeth Johnson Parker, was a clan mother. According to the family lore, the name Parker came from an English officer who had been adopted into William's family before he was born during the Revolutionary War. This officer had given the family his last name after the war was over, before departing for Canada as a way of honoring them. Ely's Seneca name was Hasanowanda, and he was one of six children. The Seneca are one of the nations that make up the Hoodenashane, or the people of the Long House, also called the Iroquois Confederacy or the Six Nations. At one point, Hoddanashanee territory stretched from what's now the Carolinas all the way up eastern North America to what's now Canada, really into what's now Canada. By the time the Parker children were born, though, the Hoddanashawe had lost almost all of this territory. Of this was through warfare with other indigenous nations, but the Hodenashani also lost huge amounts of territory to Europeans. All but two of the Hordenashani nations sided with Britain during the Revolutionary War, and this split weakened their overall unity and power. The Seneca were one of the nations that sided with Britain, and American Major General John Sullivan carried out a scorched earth campaign in Seneca territory in seventeen seventy seven. Some members of nations that had sided with the British moved to Canada after the war was over, and those who stayed in the United States lost more and more land. By seventeen ninety seven, the Seneca had been reduced to twelve reservations, and by the time Hasanoanda was born, that number was down to five. The Parker family was really trying to live in a world that was dominated by the United States while also preserving their own Seneca heritage and traditions. This idea of two worlds was part of a dream that Elizabeth had while she was pregnant with Asanowanda. Arthur C. Parker, who was the grandson of Ely Parker's brother Nicholson, related this story in a biography that came out in nineteen nineteen. In Elizabeth's dream, it was snowing and a rainbow appeared that broke in the middle, with one side having letters like a sign on white men's stores. In the words of this biography, a dream interpreter told Elizabeth, quote, a son will be born to you who will be distinguished among his nation as a peacemaker. He will become a white man as well as an Indian. He will be a wise white man, but will never desert his Indian people nor lay down his horns. As a great chief, his name will reach from the east to the west, the north to the south, as great among his Indian family and palefaces. His son will rise on Indian land and set on white man's land, yet the ancient land of his ancestors will fold him in death. So while Hassanawanda and his siblings were raised as Seneca, they also went to English schools. It's not completely clear when Hassanawanda started using the name Ely, but he was named for the Reverend ely Stone, the clergyman who ran the Baptist mission school next to the Tonawanda reservation. When ely was about ten, the Tonawanda Band of Seneca were stripped of their reservation land for context. In seventeen ninety seven, the Seneca Nation and the United States had signed the Treaty of Big Tree. Under the terms of this treaty, the Seneca had agreed to relinquish almost all of their land in New York, while retaining twelve tracts of land as reservations. Under this treaty, the Tonawanda Reservation measured about seventy square miles or about forty four thousand, eight hundred acres. In the early nineteenth century, the US government was trying to move indigenous peoples from the eastern part of the country to land west to the Mississippi River, something that was legally codified under the Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty. In conjunction with this federal effort, land companies were trying to acquire Indigenous land. This included the Ogden Land Company, which lobbied heavily for access to Haddenishani Land in New York. The Ogden Land Company acquired much of the remaining Seneca land under a series of treaties known as the Treaties of Buffalo Creek. Construction on the Erie Canal also began in eighteen seventeen, and the canal ran directly through Seneca territory, as did the Genesee Valley Canal that was built about two decades later. Two of these treaties, signed in eighteen twenty six and eighteen thirty eight, were never ratified by Congress, and while they were being negotiated, the Ogden Land Company used bribery, intimidation, and threats to try to get their way. The eighteen twenty six treaty allowed the Ogden Land Company to purchase six of the remaining Seneca reservations and also reduced the Tonawanda Reservation to about twelve thousand acres, and under the eighteen thirty eight treaty, the Seneca would relinquish all the rest of their land in New York and move west to Kansas within five years. Under this treaty, the United States would pay four hundred thousand dollars for the cost of that relocation, and Thomas Ludlow Ogden and Joseph Fellows would have the rights to sell all that land. In addition to the various efforts at coercion, manipulation, and deception that the Land Company and its agents had carried out, many Seneca considered these treaties to be completely invalid. They argued that the people who had signed them did not represent all of them, and that most of the nation did not agree with the treaty's terms. The Tonawanda Seneca in particular, did not feel that they were party to the treaty at all, as the Tonawanda chiefs had not signed it. Of course, this was part of a whole pattern of similar treaty processes in which the indigenous people were at best at a huge disadvantage up So, the Seneca fought back using a whole array of strategies. They sent delegations to the New York Capitol in Albany and to the US capital in Washington, d C. As well as a delegation to Canada. There were letters and petitions and court cases and public meetings, advertisements, and local publications really on and on. The Seneca rallied support from their non indigenous neighbors, including Quakers, who had opposed these treaties. From the beginning, the Seneca personally confronted land surveyors and other officials and forced them off of the land that they had come to survey or inspect, and this went on four years. An eighteen forty seven annual report of the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs described the Tanawanda Seneca as putting all of their time and energy into two things, providing for their families and quote the adoption of means to preserve their homes and lands, and to annul or defeat the contract or treaty. Ely would become a part of this himself, but when the eighteen thirty eight treaty was signed, he was only about ten years old. Soon after, he went to the Six Nations Reserve in Canada. In Arthur C. Parker's account, he ran away, but with his father's permission and accompanied by one of his father's friends. Other accounts make it seem more like his parents decided to send him to Canada because Handenashawnee traditions were stronger there and they wanted him to spend more time in that world while he still could. While living at the Six Nations Reserve along the Grand River in Ontario, Canada, Eli Parker got a job caring for horses for the army and sometimes driving those horses from one military post to another, and he had a formative experience while he was doing this. On one of these journeys, the army officers that he was with were making fun of him for not speaking English very well. This is something he described as both rude and as good natured jesting, not done out of malice, but in the words of Arthur C. Parker quote, these jests and sharp thrusts they gave him were of highest importance in determining his character and did much to arouse his ambition. In the long lonesome ride, he did a great deal of thinking. He tells us that he resolved not only to continue his education, but to become a master of the English tongue. More than this, he resolved to know that language so well that he could talk as brilliantly as any Englishman could. According to Parker's account, once Elee had delivered the horses, he walked from Hamilton, Ontario, back to Buffalo, New York. It's roughly seventy miles, and then he walked from there back to his family. We'll have more after a sponsor break. When Eli Parker arrived back in New York, the Seneca were still fighting to get their land back. In eighteen forty two, a new Buffalo Creek treaty, this one ratified by the Senate and proclaimed by the President, restored the Seneca nations Allegheny, Cattaraugus, and Oil Springs reservations, but not the Tonawanda reservation. The Seneca could stay in New York only if they moved to one of those reservations that had been restored under this treaty, but many of the Tonawanda Seneca did not want to. They wanted to stay where they were, and they still believed the treaty that had stripped them of that reservation land was fraudulent. Also in eighteen forty two, Ealy started studying at Yates Academy, about twenty miles away from where he was living. This was an advanced coeducational school, and he was the only Indigenous student there. An account written by one of his schoolmates much later on suggests that most of the student body were somewhere between curious about and fascinated by him, but they also saw him as an exception to other Indigenous people, who they regarded as indolent and lazy. Parker wrote of it quotes here, I progressed irregularly but well in all my studies, and having no Indian companionship, by advanced perceptibly and rapidly in the use of the English language. The school was eminently respectable, and the association there was therefore good. It was non sectarian and permits freedom of religious thought and action. It was a mixed school, and the association of the sexes had a refining, elevating tendency. I can recall my stay here as among the happiest days of my youthful existence. His study of English at Yates Academy allowed Parker to become an active part in the negotiations on behalf of the Tonawanda Seneca. This started when he was only about fourteen years old, and his brother Nicholson was part of it as well. Eley initially worked as an interpreter and carried messages among the delegates. He also met and started working with ethnographers Henry Rose Schoolcraft and Lewis Henry Morgan. Schoolcraft was also a geographer, and the US government had commissioned him to study the Seneca on the government's behalf. In addition to providing Schoolcraft with information about the Seneca, Parker also used him as a source, basically getting him to confirm details that would help the Seneca build their legal case against the Treaties of Buffalo Creek. For example, he asked questions like whether the Seneca had any concept of majority and minority prior to contact with Europeans, or whether they had made decisions only through unanimity. Schoolcraft's answer with this was unanimity, meaning that from a Seneca perspective, a treaty that was not unanimously supported would not be considered valid. Parker met Lewis Henry Morgan at a bookstore in Albany in eighteen forty four, and for the next six years, Parker was a major source for Morgan's anthropological research. This relationship and this work could really be an entire episode of its own. Morgan had a fascination with the Hadena Shawnee that went beyond simple academic interest. He also wanted to be adopted into the Seneca, which eventually happened in eighteen forty seven, in part because of his work against the Buffalo Creek Treaties. A couple of years before beating Eli Parker, Lewis Henry Morgan had also founded a secret fraternal society called the Order of the Gordian Knot, later renamed the Grand Order of the Iroquois. This orders initiation ceremonies appropriated indigenous cultures, including costumes and songs, and symbolically taking the names of past Haddenishani chiefs. Morgan eventually inducted Parker into this Order, and Parker later revised those initiation ceremonies. They were already full of very heavy handed stereotypes of Indigenous peoples, and Parker made them even more over the top. Parker's thought process on this revision is not really documented anywhere, but one of the sources I used in this episode describes the resulting ceremonies as almost a satire. On the surface, Parker was an actively willing participant in Morgan's anthropological research, not only explaining various aspects of the history and culture of his people, but also supplying Morgan with clothing, objects, artwork, and other items. Parker also translated speeches by Handenishani orators into English. He also did a lot of additional work on his own, creating documentation that Morgan didn't request or use. It's possible, based on all this that Parker was thinking about writing a book himself someday. But at the same time, there were some fundamental differences in how these two men saw the Hodenashani. Morgan's general perspective was that everyone was similar and cultures were all connected. But from Parker's point of view, there were aspects of Hoddanashani and European or American culture that were just fundamentally dissimilar. So Morgan had a lot of power when it came to Parker's opportunities in his future. Like in eighteen forty five, Parker enrolled at Cayuga Academy, which was an elite school that was also Morgan's alma mater. Parker's education there was paid for by a federal Civilization grant, which was part of a federal program to pay for Indigenous students educations as a way to encourage them to assimilate with white culture, but it's likely that Morgan had a hand in Parker getting into that school. Unlike his time at Yates Academy, which seems to have been pretty happy overall, Parker faced a lot of racism and abuse at Cayuga. He wrote in one letter quote, once or twice I have been severely abused, but I returned blow for blow with savage ferocity. Whether I gained the upper hand of my antagonist, I leave the public to decide for mind you, these quarrels were public bad business, but it could not be helped. While studying there, he also felt like it was up to him to disprove all of the prevailing stereotypes of Indigenous people as drunken and lazy, so he was driven to learn for its own sake and also to try to prove his worth. At the same time, he seems to have been a little bit sneaky, or at least willing to take some maybe less than ethical steps to keep up his academic performance. His brother, Nicholson, was also studying at another school, and the two of them would trade their essays after they had been created. So they not only were using one another's work, but they were also turning in versions of that work that had already been corrected by a teacher. And Arthur C. Parker's words quote, this was at least brotherly reciprocity, even if it had some suspicion of a lack of ethics. It was a secret between the brothers that a biographer has unearthed for the critic, which may not be quiet fair, but sinless heroes would be mummies, things that neither Nick nor Ely would exactly care to be. They were boys and very much alive. By this point. Parker had been involved in the Seneca's efforts to overturn the Buffalo Creek Treaties for years, and in eighteen forty six, at the age of eighteen, he led a delegation to Washington, d c. To petition James K. Polk to support a repeal of it. Polk referred the matter to the Senate, and while the other chiefs eventually returned to New York, Parker stayed behind to try to talk to the President again and to lobby Congress. Polk agreed that the federal government would put off removing the remaining Seneca while they pursued their case through both Congress and the courts. And after that Parker returned home. But there were some Seneca who had already gone to Kansas, and after getting home, Parker learned that more than a third of them had died. So he returned to Washington, d c. To try to lobby the Senate to take action. Specifically, he was lobbying for the Tanawanda Band of the Seneca to be exempt from the Buffalo Creek Treaty of eighteen forty two, but the Committee on Indian Affairs reported that doing that would undermine all of federal Indian policy, and that was ultimately voted down. We will talk about where Elee Parker went from here after we have another sponsor break. In eighteen forty seven, Eli Parker joined the Batavia Masonic Lodge, which was the first of a series of Masonic lodges that he would be a member of over the course of his life. He was described as a very dedicated Mason. Considering all the time that he had spent working on things like treaty negotiations and advocate with Congress. It's probably not surprising that after getting back from Washington, d c. He started on the path of becoming a lawyer. At this point, people became lawyers by either going to law school or through apprenticeships, and Parker got an apprenticeship at the law offices of Angel and Rice in Ellicottville, New York. But once he was ready to take the bar exam, he was denied because under New York law, only natural born and naturalized citizens could do so. Indigenous people were not considered citizens of the United States. They were considered to be wards of the government. So he changed courses and decided to become an engineer. With Lewis Henry Morgan's help, he enrolled at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He then went to Rochester to work on the expansion of the Erie Canal. He continued to work as an engineer for the next several years. In eighteen fifty one, Henry Lewis Morgan published his book League of the Hodena Shawnee Iroquois. He dedicated it to Eli Parker, writing quote, this work, the materials of which are the fruit of our joint researches, is inscribed an acknowledgment of the obligations and in testimony of the friendship of the author. This was one of the first, if not the first, systematic descriptions of a tribal culture in North America, and it did give a whole lot of credit to Parker, although it was of course presented through Morgan's lens. The publication of this book is seen as a really foundational moment in the development of anthropology as a field in the United States. That fall, Parker was named one of the fifty Chiefs of the Six Nations, also called Royner, meaning caretakers of the piece. A lot of sources used in this episode, including the work of Arthur C. Parker, translate this title as sechem, which is an Algonquian word, and these chiefs are chosen by the clan mothers. Parker was given the title Dona Hogawa or Doorkeeper, along with a silver peace medal that George Washington had given to his ancestor red Jacket, as a symbol of peace between the Six Nations and the United States, and he often wore this medal at ceremonial events. The Tanawanda band of the Seneca were still fighting against the terms of the earlier treaties of Buffalo Creek, and that fight had now been going on for two decades. They had filed four different suits against the Ogden Land Company with the help of attorney John H. Martindale, who would later go on to be the New York State Attorney General. Two of these suits did not go in the Seneca's favor, but two of them did. One of the successful suits was against Joseph Fellows, who had a deed for Tonawan to Seneca land that came through the terms of the treaty. John Blacksmith had been living on that land and had built a sawmill, a dam, and other structures on it. Fellows had forced Blacksmith off the land at gunpoint, and Blacksmith filed suit for trespass, assault and battery under an eighteen twenty one New York trespassing law. This went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court. This eighteen fifty seven Supreme Court ruling was not about whether the treaties of Buffalo Creek were valid, but whether Fellows had the right to remove Blacksmith from the land he had purportedly acquired. And the words of the Supreme Court ruling quote the removal of tribes of Indians is to be made by the authority and under the care of the government, and a forcible removal, if made at all, must be made under the direction of the United States. So Fellows, according to this ruling, did not have the right to forcibly remove Blacksmith, who was Seneca, from that land. The Ogden Land Company did not have the right to do that either, only the federal government did. The other case was decided in New York a year later. John H. Martindale represented the Seneca in this suit as well, and this one was more broad. It was filed against Asa Cutler, John Underhill, and Arsa Underhill, who claimed to hold title to Seneca land under the terms of the Treaty. Upon hearing the evidence, the New York Supreme Court ruled that quote, the Seneca Nation had not duly granted and conveyed the reserve in question to Ogden and Fellows. When the New York Court of Appeals upheld this decision, it referred back to the Supreme Court's verdict in Fellows versus Blacksmith. Neither of these cases overturned the Treaty, though they were really about at their hearts whether that eighteen twenty one trespassing law that under penned both of these cases was constitutional or not. Addressing the terms of the actual treaty itself required going through Congress, and Parker took another delegation to Washington, d c. And played a major role in developing their strategy. When they did. The advocacy on the part of the Seneca and their allies ultimately led to a fourth Treaty of Buffalo Creek between the Tonawanda Band of the Seneca and the United States. By this point, and connected to all of this, the Tonawanda Seneca had split off from the other Seneca bands living in New York. The new treaty was signed at the Meetinghouse on the Tonawanda Reservation, with Charles E. Mix of the Bureau of Indian Affairs signing on behalf of the United States, and five men, one of them Elee S. Parker, signing on behalf of the Seneca. Under this treaty, the Tonawanda Seneca relinquished any claims they had to land west of the Mississippi River that had been set aside for them in the earlier Treaties of Buffalo Creek, as well as any claims to any money that had been set aside to pay for their removal to go there, the United States would pay the tribe two hundred and fifty six thousand dollars in consideration of all those things that they were relinquishing any claims to, and the Tonawanda Seneca could use that money to buy back their land in New York. Ogden and fellows would still have the rights to sell the land that the Tonawanda Seneca did not repurchase. There were some additional terms as well, but essentially the Tonawanda Seneca were able to reclaim about seven thousand acres of reservation land. This treaty was signed on November fifth, eighteen fifty seven, and it was later ratified by the Senate and proclaimed by President James Buchanan. So this meant that there were now two federally recognized Seneca tribes in western New York, the Tonawanda Seneca and the Seneca Nation, whose Allegheny and Cattaraugus reservations had been restored under the Treaty of Buffalo Creek of eighteen forty two. A third federally recognized Seneca nation, the Seneca Cayuga Nation, is in Oklahoma. There's a whole additional history involving the Oil Springs reservation that we mentioned earlier, I feel like is separate from this whole episode. But this also meant that the Ogden Land Company and its agents didn't really face any kind of consequences for their actions leading up to the earlier treaties of Buffalo Creek, or their actions after those treaties had been signed and other. Writing later on, Arthur C. Parker described the twenty dollars an acre that the Seneca paid for their land as blood money that rewarded the Ogden Land Company for its terrible behavior. The Tanawanda Seneca had also spent more than five thousand dollars, which that's five thousand dollars in the mid nineteenth century on this two decade fight to get their reservation land back. Although ELI Parker was a big part of this, afterward he became progressively less connected to the Tonawanda Seneca. He was appointed to oversee the construction of a Federal Customs house in Galena, Illinois, and he moved there the same year this treaty was signed. He wrote about feeling conflicted when visiting the reservation because he loved his family, but he also wanted to be back in Illinois with his friends. One of his friends that he met in Galina was Ulysses s Grant and we will be talking about that next time. In the meantime, I've got some listener mail fabulous. This is from Layla and it goes back to our episode on Mammoth Cave and the Cave Wars. So Leyla said, hello again, Holly and Tracy. I'm playing a bit of catch up on some recent episodes and I perked right up when I saw the Kentucky Cave Wars episode. Mammoth Cave holds a special place in my heart as I got engaged in the cave on a tour. My husband and I are trying to visit all the US National parks currently at eighteen so plenty to go, and we did Mammoth Cave as an extended weekend in twenty seventeen. We did a lantern lit tour as part of our trip, which stopped in a section where the park rangers told us a story of how gentlemen would take rocks and throw them at the ceiling to make stars for their loves. The ceilings of the caves are covered in soot from all the lanterns and torches used to explore before the ccc ran electricity through portions of the cave. The underlying rock is white, so when a stone hit the ceiling, it would dislodge some soot, leaving a white spot or a star for the couple. It was quite romantic. As we left this area, my husband then boyfriend said the park ranger needed us to stay behind so he could perform so safety checks. Little did I know this was a ruse, and he proposed to me there. So we always tell people we found a diamond in Mammoth Cave. I wrote a few years ago with pet pictures, but realized I forgot to add names, so here are a few updated photos with descriptions. We have a black dog named Maya, who is a Great Dane German Shepherd mix, a total couch potato, but the sweetest girl. A Golden Retriever named Boone who was the best cuddler and frisbee catcher. When Laila wrote last, Boone was a puppy playing in the snow. There's a tabby cat named Peanut who continually proves he is smarter than us. That is plotting to take over the world. The last is Snickers, our calico girl we rescued from under our grill. She enjoys helping fold laundry and check on vegetables in the garden. I also included our picture in the cave after we got engaged. I cannot recommend Mammoth Cave enough to visit. It's an excellent mixture of nature and history and it's very accessible. Thank you both for all you have been listening since twenty sixteen. Earned my symhc PhD, and you two are the soundtrack of my commute. I missed you in Indianapolis, but I'm looking forward to the next live show. All the best, Layla. So yes, we do have some very sweet pet pictures that were previously described. What we have not said in the description of the previously described pictures as that's tabbycat. Peanut has a little blip going on, this little tongue sticking out on what looks like one of those window mounted cat perches. And oh, how sweet. I love how sweet this picture is from Mammoth Cave. There standing in Mammoth Cave, you cannot really see what is around them because they are holding up a lantern. So the lantern is providing all of the light for the picture. But that's all very sweet. Thank you so much, Layla. Thank you to everyone who writes to us. I think it's been a while since we've said it. We do read every single email we get, and we love getting all of these emails. We are not able to individually answer all of them, so please do not let that discourage you from writing if you're thinking about writing. We love to read all of these wonderful stories that our listeners send to us. If you would like to send us an email, we're at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and wherever else you like to get podcasts. Stuff you 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.