Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Ely S. Parker and the Tonawanda Seneca (Part 1) About this episode Ely S. Parker was instrumental in both the creation of President President Ulysses S. Grant’s “peace policy." Parker was Seneca, and he was the first Indigenous person to be placed in a cabinet-level position in the U. S. and the first Indigenous person to serve as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Deanna Flores is a flag football star, a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, and now host of a new podcast.
0:10 Holly Frey? In Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture to find the whole person behind the public identity.
0:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, you'll get to know Deanna, her guests, and even yourself a little better. No lectures, no know-it-all hosts, just real people being real.
0:26 Holly Frey? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores out now on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx, listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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1:49 Tracy V. Wilson? Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Podcasts. Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college
2:30 Tracy V. Wilson? credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
2:42 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
2:53 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
2:56 Holly Frey? And I'm Holly Frey.
2:58 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 Winnamucca. 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.
3:41 Tracy V. Wilson? And one of the people who was instrumental in both the creation of this policy and its initial implementation was Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely 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 Winnamucca, maybe even more so. And he is who we are going to be talking about both today and in our episode on Wednesday.
4:21 Holly Frey? Ely Samuel Parker was born sometime in 1828 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 Istoa, had been a war chief and was the first Seneca to enlist with the US Army during the War of 1812. His mother, Elizabeth Johnson Parker, was a Klan 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
5:03 Holly Frey? for Canada as a way of honoring them. Ely's Seneca name was Hassanawanda, and he was one of six children.
5:11 Tracy V. Wilson? The Seneca are one of the nations that make up the Haudenosaunee, or the people of the Long House, also called the Iroquois Confederacy, or the Six Nations. At one point, Haudenosaunee 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 Haudenosaunee had lost almost all of this territory.
5:40 Holly Frey? Some of this was through warfare with other indigenous nations, but the Haudenosaunee also lost huge amounts of territory to Europeans. All but two of the Haudenosaunee 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 1777. 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 1797,
6:24 Holly Frey? the Seneca had been reduced to 12 reservations, and by the time Hassanawanda was born, that number was down to five.
6:31 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 Hassanawanda. Arthur C. Parker, who was the grandson of Ely Parker's brother Nicholson, related this story in a biography that came out in 1919. "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,
7:14 Tracy V. Wilson? "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 pale faces. 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."
7:47 Holly Frey? 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.
8:07 Tracy V. Wilson? When Ely was about 10, the Tonawanda Band of Seneca were stripped of their reservation land. For context, in 1797, 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 12 tracts of land as reservations. Under this treaty, the Tonawanda Reservation measured about 70 square miles, or about 44,800 acres.
8:40 Holly Frey? Then, in the early 19th century, the US government was trying to move indigenous peoples from the eastern part of the country to land west of the Mississippi River, something that was legally codified under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. 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 Haudenosaunee 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 1817, and the canal ran directly through Seneca Territory,
9:26 Holly Frey? as did the Genesee Valley Canal that was built about two decades later.
9:31 Tracy V. Wilson? Two of these treaties, signed in 1826 and 1838, 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 1826 treaty allowed the Ogden Land Company to purchase six of the remaining Seneca reservations and also reduce the Tonawanda Reservation to about 12,000 acres. And under the 1838 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 $400,000 for the cost of that relocation,
10:14 Tracy V. Wilson? and Thomas Ludlow Ogden and Joseph Fellows would have the rights to sell all that land.
10:20 Holly Frey? 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.
10:50 Tracy V. Wilson? 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.
11:00 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 Capitol in Washington DC, 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 for years.
11:43 Tracy V. Wilson? An 1847 annual report of the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs described the Tonawanda 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."
12:04 Holly Frey? Ely would become a part of this himself. But when the 1838 treaty was signed, he was only about 10 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 Haudenosaunee traditions were stronger there and they wanted him to spend more time in that world while he still could.
12:38 Tracy V. Wilson? While living at the Six Nations Reserve along the Grand River in Ontario, Canada, Ely 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.
13:22 Tracy V. Wilson? 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."
13:42 Holly Frey? According to Parker's account, once Ely had delivered the horses, he walked from Hamilton, Ontario, back to Buffalo, New York, that's roughly 70 miles. And then he walked from there back to his family.
13:56 Tracy V. Wilson? We'll have more after a sponsor break.
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14:24 Speaker 03 It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
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15:41 Tracy V. Wilson? Some life decisions are hard, but thanks to ADT Blue, you can DIY trusted ADT home security in a snap. Head to ADT.com/BLU to build your system today. And to hear more about home protection and other grown-up topics, check out new episodes of Grown-Up Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
16:08 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane, navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
16:54 Tracy V. Wilson? only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
17:08 Holly Frey? Deanna Flores, flag football star, trailblazer, broadcaster and entrepreneur, knows what pressure feels like. She knows what it takes to step up in the moment, and she knows that even the biggest achievement is never the end of the story.
17:21 Tracy V. Wilson? In the new podcast, Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture, including sports, business, wellness and entertainment, to find the whole person behind the public identity.
17:33 Holly Frey? Whether she's talking to an athlete on the field, a founder heading into a pitch, or a musician before a show, the conversation starts with the official bio ends.
17:42 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, Deanna shares her own experiences, questions and even doubts. Her guests learn from her, she learns from them, and you might pick up something along the way. No lectures, no know-it-all host, just real people being real.
17:55 Holly Frey? Come curious and leave with something you can use.
17:58 Tracy V. Wilson? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores out now on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico.
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18:52 Tracy V. Wilson? to help solve hiring challenges and find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
19:26 Tracy V. Wilson? When Ely Parker arrived back in New York, the Seneca were still fighting to get their land back. In 1842, a new Buffalo Creek Treaty, this one ratified by the Senate and proclaimed by the president, restored the Seneca Nations Allegheny, Cataragus, 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.
20:07 Holly Frey? Also, in 1842, Ely started studying at Yates Academy, about 20 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.
20:39 Tracy V. Wilson? Parker wrote of it, "Here I progressed irregularly but well in all my studies. And having no Indian companionship, I 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 nonsectarian and permitted 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."
21:14 Holly Frey? 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 14 years old, and his brother Nicholson was part of it as well. Ely initially worked as an interpreter and carried messages among the delegates.
21:35 Tracy V. Wilson? 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
22:18 Tracy V. Wilson? 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.
22:32 Holly Frey? Parker met Lewis Henry Morgan at a bookstore in Albany in 1844, 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 Haudenosaunee that went beyond simple academic interest. He also wanted to be adopted into the Seneca, which eventually happened in 1847, in part because of his work against the Buffalo Creek Treaties.
23:04 Tracy V. Wilson? A couple of years before beating Ely 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 order's initiation ceremonies appropriated indigenous cultures, including costumes and songs, and symbolically taking the names of past Haudenosaunee 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.
23:47 Tracy V. Wilson? 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.
24:01 Holly Frey? 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 Hadenishani 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.
24:36 Tracy V. Wilson? But at the same time, there were some fundamental differences in how these two men saw the Hadenishani. 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 Hadenishani and European or American culture that were just fundamentally dissimilar. Also, Morgan had a lot of power when it came to Parker's opportunities and his future. Like in 1845, 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
25:18 Tracy V. Wilson? 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.
25:33 Holly Frey? 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.
26:17 Tracy V. Wilson? 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. In 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 quite fair.
27:01 Tracy V. Wilson? But sinless heroes would be mummies, things that neither Nick nor Ely would exactly care to be. They were boys and very much alive."
27:10 Holly Frey? By this point, Parker had been involved in the Seneca's efforts to overturn the Buffalo Creek Treaties for years. And in 1846, at the age of 18, he led a delegation to Washington DC 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.
27:38 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 DC to try to lobby the Senate to take action. Specifically, he was lobbying for the Tonawanda ban of the Seneca to be exempt from the Buffalo Creek Treaty of 1842. But the Committee on Indian Affairs reported that doing that would undermine all of federal Indian policy, and that was ultimately voted down.
28:24 Holly Frey? We will talk about where E. Lee Parker went from here after we have another sponsor break.
28:30 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So, listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you.
29:13 Tracy V. Wilson? All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
29:34 Holly Frey? Deanna Flores, flag football star, trailblazer, broadcaster, and entrepreneur, knows what pressure feels like. She knows what it takes to step up in the moment, and she knows that even the biggest achievement is never the end of the story.
29:46 Tracy V. Wilson? In the new podcast, Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture, including sports, business, wellness, and entertainment, to find the whole person behind the public identity.
29:58 Holly Frey? Whether she's talking to an athlete on the field, a founder heading into a pitch, or a musician before a show, the conversation starts with the official bio ends.
30:08 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, Deanna shares her own experiences, questions, and even doubts. Her guests learn from her, she learns from them, and you might pick up something along the way. No lectures, no know-it-all host, just real people being real.
30:20 Holly Frey? Come curious and leave with something you can use.
30:23 Tracy V. Wilson? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores, out now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico.
30:35 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for sponsored jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges and
31:19 Tracy V. Wilson? find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments, you give so much to everyone else, isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college
32:04 Tracy V. Wilson? credit. At UAGC, you can take one accelerated course at a time, helping you move toward your goals in five- and six-week class formats. Visit uagc.edu today.
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32:52 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1847, Ely 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 advocating with Congress, it's probably not surprising that after getting back from Washington DC, 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 Elicottville,
33:32 Tracy V. Wilson? 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.
33:53 Holly Frey? 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.
34:12 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1851, Henry Lewis Morgan published his book, League of the Hodenishoni Iroquois. He dedicated it to Ely Parker, writing, quote, "This work, the materials of which are the fruit of our joint researches, is inscribed, an acknowledgement 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.
34:59 Holly Frey? That fall, Parker was named one of the 50 chiefs of the Six Nations, also called royner, meaning caretakers of the peace. A lot of sources used in this episode, including the work of Arthur C. Parker, translate this title as seachum, which is an Algonquian word. And these chiefs are chosen by the clan mothers. Parker was given the title donahoga 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.
35:38 Tracy V. Wilson? The Tonawanda 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.
36:07 Holly Frey? One of the successful suits was against Joseph Fellows, who had a deed for Tonawanda 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 1821 New York trespassing law.
36:34 Tracy V. Wilson? This went all the way to the US Supreme Court. This 1857 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. In the words of the Supreme Court ruling, "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.
37:17 Tracy V. Wilson? The Ogden Land Company did not have the right to do that either. Only the federal government did.
37:23 Holly Frey? 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 Arza 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.
38:02 Tracy V. Wilson? Neither of these cases overturned the treaty, though. They were really about at their hearts whether that 1821 trespassing law that underpinned 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.
38:30 Holly Frey? 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 Meeting House 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, Eli S. Parker, signing on behalf of the Seneca.
39:06 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 $256,000 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.
39:49 Tracy V. Wilson? There were some additional terms as well, but essentially the Tonawanda Seneca were able to reclaim about 7,000 acres of reservation land. This treaty was signed on November 5th, 1857, and it was later ratified by the Senate and proclaimed by President James Buchanan.
40:07 Holly Frey? 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 Cataragus reservations had been restored under the Treaty of Buffalo Creek of 1842. A third federally recognized Seneca Nation, the Seneca Cuyuga Nation, is in Oklahoma.
40:30 Tracy V. Wilson? 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. In other writing, later on, Arthur C. Parker described the $20 an acre that the Seneca paid for their land as "blood money" that rewarded the Ogden Land Company for its terrible behavior. The Tonawanda Seneca had also spent more than $5,000, which that's $5,000 in the mid-19th
41:12 Tracy V. Wilson? century, on this two-decade fight to get their reservation land back.
41:17 Holly Frey? Although E. Lee 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.
41:44 Tracy V. Wilson? One of his friends that he met in Galena was Ulysses S. Grant, and we will be talking about that next time.
41:54 Tracy V. Wilson? Uh, in the meantime, I've got some listener mail.
41:57 Holly Frey? Fabulous.
41:58 Tracy V. Wilson? This is from Leila, and it goes back to our episode on Mammoth Cave and the Cave Wars. So Leila 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 18, so plenty to go, and we did Mammoth Cave as an extended weekend in 2017. We did a lantern-lit tour as part of our trip, which stopped in a section where the park rangers told us the story of how
42:38 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 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,
43:23 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 is the best cuddler and frisbee catcher. When Leila 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 and 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
44:05 Tracy V. Wilson? Cave enough to visit. It's an excellent mixture of nature and history, and it's very accessible. Thank you both for all you do. I've been listening since 2016, earned my SYMHCPHD, 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, Leila. So yes, we do have some very sweet pictures that were previously described. What we have not said in the description of the previously described pictures is that Tabby Cat Peanut has a little blep going on, tiny little tongue sticking out on what looks like one of those window-mounted cat perches.
44:49 Tracy V. Wilson? And oh, how sweet. I love how sweet this picture is from Mammoth Cave. They're 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, Leila. 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
45:34 Tracy V. Wilson? you would like to send us an email, we're at [email protected] , and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and wherever else you like to get podcasts.
45:50 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
46:05 Tracy V. Wilson? Deanna Flores is a flag football star, a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, and now host of a new podcast.
46:11 Holly Frey? In Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture to find the whole person behind the public identity.
46:19 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, you'll get to know Deanna, her guests, and even yourself a little better. No lectures, no know-it-all hosts, just real people being real.
46:27 Holly Frey? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores, out now on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico.
46:36 Tracy V. Wilson? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying
47:18 Tracy V. Wilson? connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right, just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T: Connecting Changes Everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details. Long hours, work deadlines, family commitments. You give so much to everyone else. Isn't it time to invest in yourself? The University of Arizona Global Campus is built for working adults with flexible online degree programs designed to fit your life. Your previous education, training, and eligible experience may even help you earn college credit. At UAGC, you can
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Previous SYMHC Classics: Scurvy Next Ely S. Parker and Ulysses S. Grant (Part 2) Page updated November 5, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated