The Seneca Man Who Wrote The Surrender Terms At Appomattox – Then Became America’s First Native Commissioner Of Indian Affairs

When Grant won the election, Parker was at the center of what came next.

The Commissioner and the Policy

Grant took office in March 1869, and one of his early appointments was Ely Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

The appointment was historic in a way that was immediately recognized.

Parker was the first Native American ever to hold the position.

He was also the first person who had personal, direct experience of being a Native American — of navigating the federal system from the Native side, of dealing with the Bureau of Indian Affairs as an external force in his community’s life — to be placed in charge of that system.

Grant’s appointment of Parker was part of what became known as the Peace Policy — an approach to federal Indian affairs that was, by the standards of the era, more reformist than what had preceded it.