It was enough to open the door for Parker.

It was not enough to open the door for anyone else.

Grant’s later appointment of Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs was similarly a combination of genuine respect for Parker’s qualifications — his knowledge of Native affairs, his personal experience of the trust and reservation systems, his administrative ability — and political calculation.

Having Parker in the position served Grant’s Peace Policy by providing it a Native face, by signaling a kind of good faith that a white commissioner could not have signaled.

Whether Grant fully thought through the paradoxes of the appointment — placing a Native man in charge of a coercive system that continued to restrict Native sovereignty — is not clear from the historical record.