Ely Samuel Parker

• Born: c. 1828
• Birthplace: Near Pembroke, New York
• Died: August 31, 1895
• Place of death: Fairfield, Connecticut

Category: Tribal chief

Tribal affiliation: Seneca

Significance: Parker was a Seneca chief who became a member of Ulysses S. Grant’s staff during the Civil War; he was the first Indian appointed commissioner of Indian affairs

Parker was born on the Tonawanda Seneca reservation in western New York. He was a member of the Wolf clan, in keeping with the Seneca and Iroquois custom of remaining in the clan of one’s mother. Parker’s mother was Elizabeth Parker (Gaontgwutwus). His father, William Parker (Jonoestowa), had a white mother but served as the chief of the Tonowanda Seneca. His maternal grandfather, Jimmy Johnson (Sosehawa), was high priest of the Six Nations of the Iroquois and a nephew of Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha), a noted Seneca leader.

Educated in a missionary school and two local academies, Parker was pressed into service at an early age as an emissary for Seneca leaders who were negotiating with the James K. Polk administration and United States Senate over land titles. These negotiations, and some related court cases, were eventually settled in favor of the Seneca. Parker also helped Lewis H. Morgan with his landmark study of the Iroquois, the first scientific work on the tribe. On September 19, 1851, Parker became a sachem. He assumed the title of Donehogawa, which signified the traditional role of keeper of the western door of the council house. At this time he was formally entrusted with keeping the silver medal given to Red Jacket by George Washington in 1792, though Parker had worn it previously.

After serving as an emissary for the Seneca, a role that he periodically repeated before the Civil War, Parker studied law, but was not admitted to the bar because he was not a United States citizen. In 1849, he joined a state engineering party. He learned this profession as he worked; there is no record of his attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as some sources assert. A few years later, he became an engineering officer for the state militia, and he was active in the Masons. He failed to obtain a promotion from the state, so he resigned and secured an appointment as a civil engineer with the federal government. He directed the construction of a customhouse and marine hospital at Galena, Illinois, from 1857 to 1859, then supervised several other federal projects in the area. It was at this time that he became acquainted with Ulysses S. Grant.

Parker lost his federal appointment in the scramble for offices after Abraham Lincoln’s election. His attempt to obtain a commission in the Corps of Engineers at the outbreak of the Civil War proved fruitless, allegedly because of his race. He returned to the reservation in New York, where he farmed and unsuccessfully applied for citizenship, the lack of which he believed was preventing him from receiving a military commission. Although he did not become a citizen, on May 25, 1863, Parker was appointed an assistant adjutant general with the rank of captain on the staff of General John E. Smith, a former Galena jeweler who was in command of a division for Grant at Vicksburg. Traditionally, a sachem could not hold a military title, but this restriction was waived since Parker would not be fighting another tribe.

In September, 1863, he was transferred to Grant’s staff as an assistant adjutant general. Grant became a lieutenant general and went east in the spring of 1864; he took Parker along, and in August, 1864, appointed him as his military secretary, with the rank of lieutenant colonel of volunteers. Parker earned a brevet as a colonel of volunteers before General Robert E. Lee surrendered in April, 1865, at Appomattox, where Parker had the honor of writing the final copy of the terms of surrender. Allegedly, Lee was momentarily taken aback by the swarthy appearance of Parker, but he recovered his composure and declared that it was nice to have a “real American” present for such a historic occasion. For his Civil War service, Parker was brevetted a brigadier general of volunteers in 1865, to date from April 9, the day that Lee capitulated.

Parker was one of several negotiators who met with Indians at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in September, 1865, and he was often asked to repeat this role immediately after the war. In July, 1866, when Grant became general-in-chief, Parker became his aide-de-camp. When the volunteers were mustered out, Grant secured the rank of lieutenant in the regular army for Parker, and this was quickly followed by brevets up to brigadier general. Grant took office as president in 1869 and appointed Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the first Indian to hold that office. Parker worked zealously to promote peaceful settlements of Indian problems within the “Quaker Peace Policy” adopted by Grant, which earned Parker some powerful enemies. In 1871, the House of Representatives tried him for defrauding the government. He was acquitted of all charges, but the experience prompted him to resign on August 1, 1871.

Although he remained very active in veterans’ organizations, Parker never again worked for the federal government. He had married Minnie Orton Sackett, who was twenty years his junior, in 1867; after he resigned, they settled in Fairfield, Connecticut, where one of her close friends resided. Maude T. Parker (Ahweheeyo), their only child, was born at Fairfield in 1878. Parker invested in a variety of enterprises; various setbacks eliminated his fortune, though he retained his real estate. In 1876, he accepted an appointment as superintendent of buildings and supplies for the New York City Police Department. He held this post until his death on August 30, 1895, at the home of his wife’s friend in Fairfield. Bright’s disease killed him, but he also had diabetes and suffered several strokes.

Parker was buried initially in Fairfield, but in January, 1897, his body was removed to a plot at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, where Red Jacket’s remains had been interred in 1884 in a ceremony at which Parker spoke. Ironically, Parker’s final resting place was within the shadow of a heroic statue of his illustrious ancestor, which had been commissioned after his own suggestion for a design commemorating the decline of the Iroquois Confederacy was rejected.

Bibliography

Armstrong, William H. Warrior in Two Camps: Ely S. Parker, Union General and Seneca Chief. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1978.

Parker, Arthur C. The Life of General Ely S. Parker, Last Grand Sachem of the Iroquois and General Grant’s Military Secretary. Buffalo, N.Y.: Buffalo Historical Society, 1919.

Yeuell, Donovan. “Ely Samuel Parker.” In Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 14, edited by Dumas Malone. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943.