Ely S. Parker

Ely Samuel Parker, born Hasanoanda and later known as Donehogawa (* 1828, † August 30 1895 in Fairfield, Connecticut ) was a chieftain of the Wolf Clan of the Seneca Indians and officer of the U.S. Army under General Ulysses S. Grant. His father Jonoestowa or William Parker was a chief of the Tuscarora, his mother Elizabeth Goongwutwus or a descendant of Handsome Lake and the Red Jacket.

Parker learned at an early age and attended the English language from 1842 to 1846 various schools and colleges in New York State. He then worked as a clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, represented his tribe in negotiations with the federal government in Washington, DC and studied law in passing, as it was common in the U.S. in the self-study. Since he did not have as an Indian American citizenship, but he was not admitted as a lawyer and then took on in 1849 to study engineering. In 1851 he was elected Grand Sachem ( chief ) of the Seneca, and as such could achieve in 1857 that the subgroup of Tonawanda Senecas, whose resettlement was provided to Kansas, retain their ancestral territory in New York and were able to explain to the reserve. In the following years he worked as a construction and surveying engineer in several Midwestern states, where in 1860 the former officer and nunmehrigen Kaufmannsgehilfenbrief Ulysses S. Grant met.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Parker took the side of the northern states and tried several times to get a commission in the Union Army. Once again, failed his plans but to the lack of citizenship. Even an appeal to Congress was unsuccessful. Only the intervention of his now -general Ascended friend Grant towards the end of May he was appointed in 1863 captain of volunteers and included as a pioneer officer in the staff of the Tennessee Army. 1864 Parker was Grant's personal secretary and accompanied the newly appointed commander of the Union Army in the eastern theater of war, where he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on August 30. Among other things, he designed the surrender document, the signed Grant and the defeated General Robert Edward Lee at the surrender at Appomattox Court House. After the war, promoted to Colonel and Brevet Brigadier General, Parker also served as Grant's adjutant until it was in 1869 elected to the U.S. President and his old companion ordered the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He was the first Native, who exercised this office. Parker was dedicated to this task with great enthusiasm at first, but had to soon realize that the slowness of the bureaucracy and the narrow-mindedness of officials in Washington all efforts to solve the Indian problem zunichtemachten. In August 1871, he resigned from his post after had been accused of irregularities in the purchase of food for endangered by hunger tribes. In the remaining years of his retirement, he was repeatedly served as a consultant and expert for the New York City Council.