Ely S. Parker

Early life and education Ely Parker was born in 1828 as the sixth of seven children to Elizabeth and William Parker at Indian Falls, New York, which was then part of the Tonawanda Reservation.

His parents strongly supported education for all their children, whose Christian names were Spencer Houghton Cone, Nicholson Henry, Levi, Caroline (Carrie), Newton, and Solomon, all with the surname of Parker. One of his elder brothers, Nicholson Parker, also became a prominent Seneca leader, as he was a powerful orator, much like the family's famous relation Red Jacket had been. Ely had a classical education at a missionary school, and was fully bilingual, speaking the Seneca language as well as English. He also studied in college. He spent his life bridging his identities as a Seneca and a resident of the United States.

Beginning in the 1840s, when Ely was a teenager, the Parker home became a meeting place of non-Indian scholars who were interested in the Haudenosaunee, including Lewis Henry Morgan, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and John Wesley Powell. They all played a role in the studies that formed ethnology and anthropology as an academic discipline. All American Indians were not considered citizens until passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, but by that time, some two-thirds were American citizens due to other circumstances, including having served in the U.S. military.

Parker encountered scholar Lewis Henry Morgan through a chance meeting in a bookstore. At the time Morgan was a young lawyer involved in forming "The Grand Order of the Iroquois", a fraternity of young white men from Upstate New York who romanticized their image of the American Indian and wanted to model their group after "Iroquois" ideals. The two bridged their cultures to become friends, and Parker invited Morgan to visit the Tonawanda Reservation in New York state. Parker became Morgan's main source of information and an entrée to others in the Seneca and other Haudenosaunee nations. Morgan later dedicated his book League of the Iroquois, published in 1851, to Parker, noting that, "the materials are the fruit of our joint researches".

The relationship proved important for both men; as Parker helped Morgan become an anthropological pioneer, Morgan helped Parker make connections in the larger white-dominated society in which he later worked and lived. With Morgan's help, Parker gained admission to study engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

Career Parker worked as a civil engineer until the start of the American Civil War. Parker was later appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a position that Morgan once aspired to hold.

Parker began his career in public service by working as an interpreter and diplomat for the Seneca chiefs in their negotiations with the United States government about land and treaty rights. In 1852, he was made sachem of the Seneca and given the name Donehogawa, "Keeper of the Western Door of the Long House of the Iroquois".

As an engineer, Parker contributed to upgrades and maintenance of the Erie Canal, among other projects. As a supervisor of government projects in Galena, Illinois, he befriended Ulysses S. Grant, forming a strong and collegial relationship that was useful later. Parker contacted his colleague and friend Ulysses S. Grant, whose forces suffered from a shortage of engineers. Parker was commissioned a captain in May 1863 and ordered to report to Brig. Gen. John Eugene Smith. Smith appointed Parker as the chief engineer of his 7th Division during the siege of Vicksburg, and later said Parker was a "good engineer". At the time of surrender, General Lee "stared at me for a moment", said Parker to more than one of his friends and relatives, "He extended his hand and said, 'I am glad to see one real American here.' I shook his hand and said, 'We are all Americans.'" Parker was brevetted brigadier general of United States Volunteers on April 9, 1865, and of United States Army March 2, 1867.

Post-Civil War After the Civil War, Parker was commissioned as an officer in the 2nd United States Cavalry on July 1, 1866. On July 25, 1866 he again became the military secretary to Grant, with the rank of colonel, and served throughout Grant's tenure as commanding general of the U.S. Army, which ended when Grant became president of the United States on March 4, 1869. Parker was a member of the Southern Treaty Commission, which renegotiated treaties with tribes who had sided with the Confederacy, were mostly from Indian Territory. On April 26, 1869, Parker resigned from the army with the rank of brevet brigadier general of the regular army. He was the first Native American to hold the office. Under his leadership, the number of military actions against Indians were reduced, and there was an effort to support tribes in their transition to living on reservations. In 1871, however, a disaffected former Commissioner of Indian Affairs named William Welsh accused Parker of corruption. Ulysses S Grant walked her down the aisle at their wedding. They had one daughter, Maud Theresa Parker (1878–1956).

Later life, death, and reinterment Parker lived his last years in poverty, dying in Fairfield, Connecticut, on August 31, 1895. He originally was buried in Connecticut, but the Seneca did not believe that this Algonquian territory was appropriate for his final resting place. They requested that his widow relocate his body.

Legacy Ely S. Parker Building of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Reston, Virginia Parker's career and influence on contemporary Native Americans is described in Chapter 8 of Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. He is said to have helped found the town of Parker, Arizona. Another individual with the surname of Parker is credited with this distinction as well. The Arizona Republic, dated April 29, 1871, indicates that the new post office was named after "Ely Parker". Parker is honored on the reverse of the 2022 Sacagawea dollar coin.

In popular culture

Jacob Riis featured Parker as a character in a short story, "A Dream of the Woods", about a Mohawk woman and her child stranded in Grand Central Terminal. Asa-Luke Twocrow plays Ely Parker in the film Lincoln (2012), directed by Steven Spielberg. Gregory Sierra plays him in Season 3, Episode 7 of the American TV series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Parker is featured as a character in the novels Grant Comes East and Never Call Retreat. Parker is featured in Season 2 of the podcast drama 1865. Parker is introduced and quoted with photos in the documentary TV series: Parker appears and speaks—on-screen—around minute 40:30 in Part 5, “The Dogs of War” of Lincoln: Divided We Stand (2021)