Ely looked at the ground.
Morgan clapped his hands together. “My friend,” he said, “please tell me that you will accept our offer.”
Ely lifted his head. His heart felt full.
“My friend,” Ely said, “if I go to this school, can I still help you?”
Morgan laughed. “Hasanoanda, my dear friend, I have no intention of losing you. Cayuga Academy is not just a fine school, it is in Aurora, my own hometown. We can see each other often.”
Morgan placed his hands on Ely’s shoulder. “Cayuga is the same school that I attended. It prepared me to be a lawyer and can do the same for you. Cayuga Academy could carry you even farther up that rainbow of your mother’s dream. I see a future for you in the practice of law. Think of that! An Indian lawyer!”
A lawyer, Yes! I could do even more to help my people as an Indian lawyer.
Ely smiled so broadly he thought his face would split. His mother’s dream was being fulfilled. He could feel his rainbow rising above him. “Nya:weh, my friend,” he said. “I accept.”
Afterword
Ely Parker was an excellent student at Cayuga Academy, but his stay there was brief. He had to leave Cayuga Academy in 1847 after only one semester. He was called upon by his people to go with a delegation to Washington, DC. It was led by Chief Blacksmith, whose title was Donehogawa, “Keeper of the Western Door.” For several years after that, Ely traveled back and forth to Washington for the Tonawanda Senecas. He also continued to work with Lewis Henry Morgan and was a source of information about the Iroquois for such famous writers as Henry Schoolcraft.
During that time, he was accepted as a student of law in the office of William P. Angel, a lawyer who was a district attorney and a federal Indian agent. However, Ely’s career in law ended after a year of study. Under New York law, only a natural born or a naturalized citizen could be admitted as a lawyer. American Indians were not citizens, and Ely was refused admission. In 1849, he turned to a career in engineering. He began working for the state of New York on the New York State canals.
In 1851, Lewis Henry Morgan published League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois, and dedicated it as follows: “To Ha-sa-no-an-da (Ely S. Parker)” as “the fruit of our joint researches.”
In 1851, after the death of John Blacksmith, a condolence ceremony and grand council of the Six Nations was held. At that ceremony, Ely Parker was given the title of Donehogawa. At the age of twenty-three he had become, as he now signed his letters, “Grand Sachem of the Six Nations of Indians in New York and Canada.” He was also formally given the Red Jacket medal at that same ceremony.
Over the next several years, Ely represented the Tonawanda Senecas in Albany and Washington and at meetings with Presidents Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, and Pierce. He was also active in the local volunteer militia (the equivalent of the modern National Guard), where he earned the rank of captain of engineers in the 54th Regiment of the New York state militia.
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Ogden Land Company could not remove the Tonawanda Senecas from their land. The ruling was followed by a new treaty in 1858 that allowed the Tonawanda Senecas to keep more than half of their land.
While living in Galena, Illinois, Ely met a former army officer who had served in the Mexican War. That officer was now working in a store owned by his wife’s father. The two men became close friends. The former army officer, who returned to the army when the Civil War started, was none other than Ulysses S. Grant. Grant became a general and commander of the Union soldiers and president after the war.
Ely tried to volunteer for the Union army. He knew that engineers were needed. But he was turned down each time he tried. He even approached William Seward, the secretary of state, a fellow New Yorker who knew Ely well. Again, he was refused because he was an Indian. “The fight,” Seward told him, “was an affair between white men and one in which the Indian was not called on to act.”
However, in 1863, Ely’s friends in the army acted on his behalf. He was appointed to be an important administrative officer in the Union army. He went on to become Grant’s personal secretary and was by Grant’s side for the rest of the war. When the war ended at Appomattox, it was Ely who wrote out the terms of the surrender of the Army of Virginia. General Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Southern forces, said to Ely as he shook his hand, “I am glad to see one real American here.” Ely’s gracious reply was, “We are all Americans.”
About the Author
Joseph Bruchac is a writer and traditional storyteller whose work often reflects his American Indian (Abenaki) ancestry and the Adirondack Region of northern New York where he lives in the house that he was raised in by his grandparents. He holds a B.A. in English from Cornell University, an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute of Ohio. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press.
A martial arts expert, he holds a 5th degree black belt and Master’s rank in Pentjak-silat and in 2014 earned a purple belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu. He and his two grown sons, James and Jesse, who are also storytellers and writers, work together in projects involving the preservation of Native culture, Native language renewal, teaching traditional Native skills and environmental education.
Author of over 120 books in several genres for young readers and adults, his experiences include running a college program in a maximum security prison and teaching in West Africa. His newest books include a picture book co-authored with his son James, RABBIT’S SNOW DANCE (Dial), a bilingual collection of poems in English and Abenaki co-authored by him and his younger son Jesse, NISNOL SIBOAL/TWO RIVERS (Bowman Books), and the young adult post-apocalyptic novel KILLER OF ENEMIES (Tu Books), winner of the 2014 Native American Librarians Association Award.
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