Poems by Joseph Bruchac based on the Life of Ely Parker. Ely Samuel Parker (1828 - August 31, 1895), (born Hasanoanda, later known as Donehogawa) was a Seneca attorney, engineer, and tribal diplomat. He was commissioned a lieutenant colonel during the American Civil War, when he served as adjutant to General Ulysses S. Grant. He wrote the final draft of the Confederate surrender terms at Appomattox. Later in his career, Parker rose to the rank of Brevet Brigadier General, one of only two Native Americans to earn a general's rank during the war (the other being Stand Watie, who fought for the Confederacy). President Grant appointed him as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the first Native American to hold that post.
Warrior in Two Camps is the biography of Ely S. Parker, the first native American to serve as commissioner of Indian Affairs. The name Ely Samuel Parker is seldom found among famous Indian chiefs. Indeed, the name seems somehow out of place in the company of men called Black Hawk or Crazy Horse or Geronimo. But the prosaic name is part of the story of an American Indian who chose to live his life in the white man’s world. It is a story in which a frock coat replaces the traditional deerskin, and a surveyor’s level and a soldier’s orderly book take the place of the wampum belt and the war club.
In America's collective unconscious, the Haudenosaunee, known to many as the Iroquois, are viewed as an indelible part of New York's modern and democratic culture. From the Iroquois confederacy serving as a model for the US Constitution, to the connections between the matrilineal Iroquois and the woman suffrage movement, to the living legacy of the famous "Sky Walkers," the steelworkers who built the Empire State Building and the George Washington Bridge, the Iroquois are viewed as an exceptional people who helped make the state's history unique and forward-looking. John C. Winters contends that this vision was not manufactured by Anglo-Americans but was created and spread by an influential, multi-generational Seneca-Iroquois family. From the American Revolution to the Cold War, Red Jacket, Ely S. Parker, Harriet Maxwell Converse (adopted), and Arthur C. Parker used the tools of a colonial culture to shape aspects of contemporary New York culture in their own peoples' image. The result was the creation of "The Amazing Iroquois," an historical memory that entangled indigenous self-definition, colonial expectations about racial stereotypes and Native American politics, and the personalities of the people who cultivated and popularized that memory. Through the imperial politics of the eighteenth century to pioneering museum exhibitions of the twentieth, these four Seneca celebrities packaged and delivered Iroquoian stories to the broader public in defiance of the contemporary racial stereotypes and settler colonial politics that sought to bury them. Owing to their skill, fame, and the timely intervention of Iroquois leadership, this remarkable family showcases the lasting effects of indigenous agents who fashioned a popular and long-lasting historical memory that made the Iroquois an obvious and foundational part of New Yorkers' conception of their own exceptional state history and self-identity.
Ely Parker grew up on the Tonawanda Reservation in New York in the 1830s. There he learned the ways of his people, the Seneca Indians. Ely worked many years to save his reservation from a land company, and as a result, he was made a sachem, or chief, by his people. At the same time, he was working as a translator and ambassador to bridge the gap that divided his people from the white Americans. After serving in the Civil War, Ely went on to become a United States general and lead the agency in charge of Indian affairs. Author Elizabeth Van Steenwyk tells this inspiring, and surprising, story of a man who achieved amazing success in two very different worlds.
This bilingual version of an ancient tale, written in both Abenaki and English , exemplifies the role monster stories have played in Algonquin cultures. It not only points out the dangers that life confronts us with, it also reminds us of the importance of bravery, a keen intellect and the healing powers of family and simple kindness.
Margaret M. Bruchac is a scholar, writer, and storyteller of Abenaki, English, and Slovak descent. This is her first published book of verse. Some pieces were inspired by historical research for Historic Deerfield, Old Sturbridge Village, the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, and other museums. As a musician, she also performs traditional and contemporary Algonkian Indian songs and stories with her family. Dr. Bruchac is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Connecticut at Avery Point. Her academic publications include Indigenous Archaeologies: A Reader in Decolonization, and articles in the Historical Journal of Massachusetts and Museum Anthropology, among other venues. As the 2011-2012 recipient of both a Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship and the Katrin H. Lamon Fellowship, Bruchac is presently in residence at the School for Advanced Research, completing a book manuscript for the University of Arizona Press.
Historian, visual artist and poet rolled into one, Mihku Paul tells lively stories of Maliseet heroes throughout the millennia; vividly maps a territory encompassing old canoe routes and aunties' work tables; and sings in every register from the mythic to the modern. This beautiful chapbook lights up the Native presence that has always permeated Maine and the Maritimes. Paul joins the ranks of other important Wabanaki poets--Alice Azure, Carol Bachofner, Joseph Bruchac, Carol Dana, and Cheryl Savageau--dedicated to preserving and updating their literary traditions. - Siobhan Senier, University of New Hampshire
Despite the perennial interest in the American Civil War, historians have not examined sufficiently how Native American communities were affected by this watershed event in U.S. history. This ground-breaking book by one of the foremost Iroquois historians significantly adds to our understanding of this subject by providing the first intimate look at the Iroquois' involvement in the American Civil War and its devastating impact on Iroquois communities. Both fascinating and fast-moving, The Iroquois in the Civil War exposes many myths about Native American soldiers. To correct old stereotypes about American Indians, Hauptman discusses the Iroquois' distinguished war service as commissioned and noncommissioned officers as well as ordinary cavalrymen and common foot soldiers. Drawing upon archival records and personal wartime letters and diaries never before used by ethnohistorians, Hauptman portrays the dilemma the Iroquois experienced during this era. He assesses the Iroquois' military volunteerism, their loyalty to the Union, and their concurrent effort to maintain their lands, sovereignty, and cultural identity just at a time when new pressures for tribal dissolution were increasing. He not only provides us with a remarkable glimpse into the hearts and minds of Iroquois Indians on the battlefield but also adds significantly to our understanding about the conflict affecting the women and children remaining on the reservations.
"Combines scholarly exactness with evocative passages....Biography at its best."—Marcus Cunliffe, The New York Times Book Review; Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The seminal biography of one of America's towering, enigmatic figures. From his boyhood in Ohio to the battlefields of the Civil War and his presidency during the crucial years of Reconstruction, this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography traces the entire arc of Grant's life (1822-1885). "A moving and convincing portrait....profound understanding of the man as well as his period and his country."—C. Vann Woodward, New York Review of Books "Clearsightedness, along with McFeely's unfailing intelligence and his existential sympathy...informs his entire biography."—Justin Kaplan, The New Republic
