Congress took up the question of Native American citizenship in the years following the war, as the Fourteenth Amendment — ratified in 1868 — established birthright citizenship for all persons born on American soil.

The amendment’s citizenship clause, however, specifically excluded “Indians not taxed” from the citizenship it created, a provision that reflected the prevailing legal understanding that Native people who maintained tribal relationships were not, by virtue of birth on American soil alone, citizens of the United States.

Parker received citizenship through a specific act of Congress in 1871, more than thirty years after he had first tried to be admitted to the New York bar.

The route was individual and exceptional, not systematic.