Parker resigned before the contradiction between the two findings could be fully worked through in public, and his departure allowed his opponents to claim a victory that the facts did not entirely support.

This dynamic — the reform-minded official vulnerable to attack from the entrenched interests the reformer is trying to change — is recognizable from many other historical contexts.

What makes Parker’s case distinctive is the additional layer of vulnerability created by his position as the first Native person to hold the office.

The question of whether a Native American had the authority and legitimacy to make the decisions Parker was making about Indian affairs was one that his opponents could invoke, however implicitly, in ways that would not have been available if he had been a white commissioner facing the same charges.

The Long Career After Washington