Parker himself navigated these contradictions throughout his life without leaving an extensive documentary record of how he felt about them — or if he did, much of that record has not survived.

What can be inferred from his choices is that he pursued integration into American institutional life without abandoning Seneca identity, that he sought the legal standing he needed to accomplish specific goals rather than pursuing citizenship as an end in itself, and that he understood the difference between the two.

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States, came nearly two decades after Parker’s death in 1895.

He did not live to see the formal resolution of the question that had shaped his entire life.