Ely S. Parker - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Parker was born in 1828 as the sixth of seven children to William and Elizabeth Parker, of prominent Seneca families, at Indian Falls, New York (then part of the Tonawanda Reservation). He was named Ha-sa-no-an-da and later baptized Ely Samuel Parker. His father was a miller and a Baptist minister. The Seneca were one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). Ely had a classical education at a missionary school, was fully bilingual, and went on to college. He spent his life bridging his identities as Seneca and a resident of the United States.

The parents strongly supported education for all the children, who included Spencer Houghton Cone, Nicholson Henry, Levi, Caroline (Carrie), Newton, and Solomon. Nicholson Parker also became a prominent Seneca leader as he was a powerful orator. Beginning in the 1840s, the Parker home became a meeting place of non-Indian scholars who were interested in the people, such as Lewis Henry Morgan, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and John Wesley Powell; they were connected to the discussions and studies that formed anthropology as a discipline.

Parker worked in a legal firm reading law for the customary three years in Ellicottville, New York and then applied to take the bar examination. He was not permitted because, as a Seneca, he was not considered a United States citizen at that time. It was not until 1924 that all American Indians were considered citizens under the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee stated Parker was refused because he was not a white man.

In the 1840s, Parker had a chance meeting in a book store with the Lewis Henry Morgan, a young lawyer involved in creating The Grand Order of the Iroquois, a youthful fraternity of young white men from upstate New York who romanticized their image of the Native American and who wanted to model themselves on the Native Americans who had until recently been a dominant presence in their part of the world. Through this chance meeting, Morgan and Parker became friends. Parker invited Morgan to the Tonawanda reservation. Parker became Morgan's main source of information and entrée to others in the Seneca and other Iroquois nations. Morgan dedicated his book on the Iroquois to Parker, noting their joint collaboration on the project. The relationship between the two men proved important for them both. Just as Parker helped Morgan to become an anthropological pioneer, Morgan helped Parker to make connections in the larger society. Later in life, Parker reached the position that Morgan had wanted for himself--the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

More immediately, with Morgan's help, Parker gained admission to study engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He worked as a civil engineer until the start of the American Civil War.