Ulysses Grant’s attempt to grant citizenship to Native Americans failed

When Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868, he was determined to change the way many of his fellow Americans understood citizenship. In his view, anyone could be an American, not just people like him, whose ancestry could be traced back to eight generations of Puritan New England. Grant insisted that the millions of Catholic and Jewish immigrants who poured into the United States should be considered American citizens, as should the men, women, and children who had just escaped slavery during the American Civil War. And, at a time when much of the press and public was calling for the extermination of the Indians, he believed that every Indian of every tribe should also become a U.S. citizen.

Grant was sworn in as president in 1869 and laid out his vision in his first inaugural address. He called American Indians "the original occupants of the land" and promised to do whatever it took to finally gain their "final citizenship rights," which was not an empty promise. In the spring of 1865, he was appointed the first general of the United States Army, responsible for overseeing all U.S. armies, including those in the West, where conflicts with native tribes had been fierce throughout the Civil War. In this position, Grant relied on his close friend and military secretary, Eli S. Parker, a member of the Seneca tribe, for advice. Now, as the newly elected President of the United States, he was ready to implement his plans for the Indians, with Parker at his side as his Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Parker and Grant's friendship began in 1860 when Parker was working as an engineer for the Treasury Department in Gellerna, Illinois, and frequently visited a leather goods store where the owner's son Ulysses was Work as a store clerk. Ulysses Grant developed a deep sympathy for Indians while serving in the army during the Mexican War. Later, while on active duty in California and in the Columbia River Valley, he saw firsthand the suffering endured by Indians in their own country. Grant never accepted the common notion that Americans wanted to improve the lives of indigenous peoples, noting that civilization had brought only two things to the Indians: whiskey and smallpox. However, when he met Parker,

was considered a failure. His alcoholism ended his military career, and now, as an adult with a wife and four children to support, he was stuck working for his father. But Parker recognized a kindred spirit. Unlike most white people, who pride themselves on being outgoing, even boisterous, Grant was very taciturn, so he usually went to the back room of the store to avoid talking to customers. Grant only reveals his kindness and wisdom when he gets to know a person well. That's exactly what Parker was taught while growing up on the People's Reservation in Tonawanda, New York. Men should remain stoic in public and only open up to friends in private. President Grant's choice of Eli Parker to be Commissioner of Indian Affairs was no surprise to anyone who knew Parker. A descendant of the famous Seneca Chief Red Jacket and Handsome Lake, he was considered a great man even before he was born, when his pregnant mother dreamed of a rainbow stretching from Tonawanda to the tribal Indian agent's farm, according to tribal dream interpreters, this means that her child will become a peacemaker between his people and the white people.

Parker mastered English in local schools, both on the Tonawanda Reservation and elsewhere, and became an avid reader. In 1846, when he was only 18, he became the official spokesman for his people, who were resisting the U.S. Army's efforts to remove them from Tonawanda. He soon traveled with tribal leaders to Washington, where he impressed the nation's top politicians, including President James Polk. It would take 11 years of negotiations with the Communist Party for Parker to win the right of his people to remain in their ancestral homeland. During those years he studied law, and even the Indian Council remained staunchly opposed to Grant. William Welsh, the first chairman of the board, believed that overthrowing Ely Parker, the "barbarian" who stood at the center of the board, might overturn the president's policies. The Welsh were outraged that someone like Parker could hold such a high position. He was also shocked that Parker had married a young white woman, Minnie Sackett, and the couple was the toast of Washington society.

To get rid of Parker, Wales accused Parker of negotiating a million-dollar contract to supply the Sioux in the summer of 1870 and pocketing most of the money himself. Wales asked Congress to investigate Parker and transfer management of Indian affairs to the Indian Affairs Commission. Congress was forced to submit to a public trial by the House of Representatives. Although Parker was ultimately acquitted, Congress passed legislation recognizing members of the Indian Affairs Commission as overseers of Indian affairs. In 1871, Parker resigned from his position as Indian Commissioner in humiliation and without real power.

Without an ally like Parker, Grant watched his plans for the Indians go to waste. A series of commissioners for Indian affairs succeeded Parker, but none shared his vision.

Soon, Grant ordered the army he had hoped to protect the Indians to launch a series of bloody wars with the tribes, including the Modoc War in 1873, the Red River War in 1874, and the Great Sioux War in 1876. By the time Grant left office in 1877, his "peace policy" (as the press called it) was considered by all to be a failure.

From that time on, Grant was considered an "indirect" reformer and, at best, an incompetent tool for a wealthy man like Wales. His friend Eli Parker was mistakenly considered a token dismissal. It took until the 20th century for Americans to realize that the two friends were right. In 1924, Congress granted citizenship to all American Indians who had not yet obtained citizenship.

Unfortunately, the friendship between Parker and the President collapsed with Grant's Indian policy. After resigning and leaving Washington in 1871, Parker met Grant only twice. When the former president died in the summer of 1885, Parker came to visit him, but Grant's eldest son, Fred, always rejected him. While Grant never reflected on the failure of his policies, Parker always regretted that the plans he had made with a quiet friend from Gellerner's leather shop had ended so badly.

Mary Stockwell is a writer from Ohio.

She is the author of "An Interrupted Odyssey: Ulysses S. Grant and the American Indians"