He moved to replace corrupt agents with more honest ones, using the leverage provided by Grant’s support to make personnel changes that the patronage system would normally have resisted.

He worked to improve the auditing and oversight of reservation expenditures, making it harder for agents to conceal the diversion of funds.

He engaged the Board of Indian Commissioners as an oversight mechanism, providing a layer of civilian review that had not existed before.

These were real improvements that had real effects on real communities.

The historical record is clear enough that Parker’s tenure produced some genuine reduction in the corruption that had characterized the Bureau of Indian Affairs before he arrived.

But the Peace Policy had structural limits that no amount of administrative reform could overcome.