Indians who Have Held Offical Positions

Perhaps the most conspicuous figure among American Indians who have held official positions was Tecumseh, or Tecumtha. He was born in 1768 and killed at the battle of the Thames (Canada) in 1813. His official position was British; he was a Brigadier-General in command of a British-Indian force reaching two thousand in number, and was a full-blooded Shawnee.

Another Indian of Prominence was the Mohegan, Known as Reverend Sampson Occam, who was born in 1723 and died in 1792. While he never held an official position in the strict sense of the term, he was ordained a minister in 1759. and had extensive charge of Indian missions in colonial times, thus occupying a position measurably corresponding to that of Indian Commissioner. He was well educated, author of various writings, and a noted visitor to England.

Another Indian of official status was the Cherokee Chief Stand Watie, who was born in 1815, died in 1877, and who had a slight strain of white blood. He was a colonel, and afterward Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army, commanding an Indian brigade of two regiments and three batteries.

The Cherokees rank the highest of the Indian tribes in the United States. They were originally one of the Five Nations of the Atlantic Coast, and had made considerable advancement in civilization. The spoke a language similar to the Iroquois, but were greatly retarded by their transfer, with other Indians of the Five Nations, to a desolate country, new and strange to them, beyond the Mississippi. Yet these people, the Cherokees, have advanced more rapidly than any other tribe in North America. A full-blooded Cherokee by the name of Sequoi, also called George Guess, invented for his people an alphabet, simple but complete, in 1824.

With a printed language their literature has had a steady growth peculiarly its own. The education of their people in English is also general. Many of them have amassed wealth, and have had their children educated in our best Eastern schools, and their graceful native orators have been heard on the floors of Congress. Newspapers edited by full-blooded Indians are printed in English and Cherokee.

Equally prominent was General Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian (though not of pure blood), born in 1828, and educated as a civil engineer. During the Civil War he was General Grant's secretary and an officer of his staff; he was also Assistant Adjutant-General, and was promoted through various grades to Brigadier-General of the United States Army. He was Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1869-1871.

Keokuk was a noted and influential Indian, though he never held official positions in a strict sense.

A present attache of the U. S. Indian office is Francis La Flesche, a three-quarter-blood Omaha; Representative Curtis, of Kansas, is said to be a one-quarter-blood Kaw; Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, of the Bureau of Ethnology, is about one-eighth Tuscarora; while Dr. Eastman, Agency Physician at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, is a three-quarter-blood Sioux or Dakota.

It is the policy of the Indian office at Washington to employ Indians on the Agencies and Reservations as far as possible. In consequence, on every Agency or Reservation there are a number of Indians employed by the Government as teamsters, assistant farmers, blacksmiths, and in various similar capacities, and in a few cases there are Indians employed as clerks, or in subordinate positions in the schools. A summary of these would be too extensive for the purpose of "Curious Questions."

Mexico furnishes the most conspicuous examples of Indians who have risen to high official position. President Hidalgo, for whom one of the leading States of Mexico is named, and who is until now spoken of in that country as the "George Washington" of Mexico, was said to be an Indian of full blood, or nearly so.

President Juarez, of Mexico, who is, in popular parlance, termed the "Abraham Lincoln" of Mexico, because of his having accomplished the difficult reform of divorcing Church and State, was generally supposed to be a full-blooded Indian. He is spoken of as such in Mexico. It is probable, however, that there is in him a slight strain of white blood.

President Diaz, the present President of Mexico, and one of the most influential figures in the history of the Republic, is commonly supposed to be nearly a full-blood Indian. An examination, however, of the records in his case shows that he is fifteen-thirty-seconds, or only half Indian. He completes his fifth term as President of the Republic of Mexico since 1877, and has been renominated as a candidate with a practical certainty of election for a sixth term. He is called "The Maker of Modern Mexico."