“At the turn of the century when he’s working there are very prominent Indian scholars and writers and professional Indian people who are all talking about these issues,” Rhodes says. As Curtis approached his late 60s, already having achieved so much, he had one more rung to climb on the political ladder. Decades before she was born, a man with Native American heritage served as Herbert Hoover’s vice president from 1929-1933. Sharp said, "They walked to their new home in Indian territory. Watch CBS News anytime, anywhere with the our 24/7 digital news network. Unfortunately for him, that scenario didn’t pan out; Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover won on the first ballot. "My mom loved the house; it's probably one of the prettiest houses in Topeka," said Patty Dannenberg. It needed a lot of work," Dannenberg said. In 1933 Hoover welcomed Franklin D. Roosevelt, who defeated him, as the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. Throughout his time in Congress, Curtis also consistently pushed for policies that many Native Americans today say were a disaster for their nations. He was a world-famous mining engineer and humanitarian administrator. In 1928 Curtis, running with Herbert Hoover, was elected the 31st Vice President of the United States. His plan was to run a behind-the-scenes campaign, seeking support from delegates who he hoped would see him as a compromise candidate if they couldn’t come together behind one of the frontrunners. Meet Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation and Herbert Hoover’s vice president from 1928 to 1932. She said Curtis, like other Native American assimilationists, was concerned with issues like the education and health of Native American people, who were already suffering immensely in a pre-Dawes Act United States. Henry said, "Women have always had leadership roles within our tribe, and been really the backbone and strength of our tribe.". "It hadn't been well cared for. In 1927, when Republican President Calvin Coolidge announced that he would not run for another term, he saw his chance to run for President the following year. Give a Gift. … But for Native Americans, the legacy of the man known as "Indian Charley" is decidedly mixed. By 1873 the Kaw Nation, once millions of acres in area, had dwindled to little more than a burial plot, and the few hundred surviving members were being forcibly relocated south to what would become Oklahoma. Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874–October 20, 1964), mining engineer, humanitarian, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and 31st President of the United States, was the son of Jesse Hoover, a blacksmith, and Hulda Minthorn Hoover, a seamstress and recorded minister in the Society of Friends (Quakers). Herbert Hoover: Impact and Legacy. But with the onset of the Great Depression, the ticket's bid for reelection went down in flames. “And of course, that [opened up] tribal land in Oklahoma to white settlers, sooners.”. Asked to be vice president by Herbert Hoover, Curtis joined the ticket in 1928 and the pair won in a landslide. But what about his race? At the time, however, Curtis’ positions were far from unique among Native Americans. He had the misfortune to inherit an economy and a faulty banking system which collapsed before it could be reformed. In a landslide victory in 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected the 31st U.S. President. Keep up-to-date on: © 2021 Smithsonian Magazine. Could Indoor Vertical Farms Feed Livestock? Vote Now! Seven years later, the Republican Party saw putting the two together on their ticket as the solution to a serious problem: Hoover was tremendously unpopular with farmers. He favored the Dawes Act of 1887, passed a few years before he entered Congress, which allowed the federal government to divide tribal lands into individual plots, which eventually led to the selling of their land to the public. Curtis, Kansas’ beloved veteran senator, offered the perfect choice to balance out the Commerce Secretary. ", How did that feel? Livia Gershon is a freelance journalist based in New Hampshire. Contemporary accounts cite his personal charm and willingness to work hard served him well in politics. Herbert Hoover was the 31st president of the United States (1929–1933), whose term was notably marked by the stock market crash of 1929 and the beginnings of the Great Depression. The policies Curtis pursued in Congress and then as vice president, specifically those on Native issues, cloud his legacy today despite his groundbreaking achievements. And I want people to remember him, I think, in a good way.". “You tell mothers, ‘OK, you’re going to give birth to a child, but at 5 they’re going to be taken from you,’” Grinede says. He also notes that the relationship of white Americans of the time with Native American identity was complicated. The senator had bristled at Hoover’s choice in 1918 to campaign for Democratic candidates and tried to stop then-President Warren G. Harding from appointing him to his cabinet, which he did anyway in 1921. 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. By David E. Hamilton. Ninety-two years ago Charles Curtis was inaugurated as America's first (and only) Native American vice president. While many were dead set against land division and other policies pushed by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, others believed that tribes must assimilate into white American society and adopt norms like individual land ownership. Patty Dannenberg hopes that whoever buys the Curtis home will preserve it. Elected in 1928, Charles Curtis became the first, and only, Native American Vice President of the United States. “I took her splendid advice and the next morning as the wagons pulled out for the south, bound for Indian Territory, I mounted my pony and with my belongings in a flour sack, returned to Topeka and school,” Curtis later recalled, in a flourish of self-mythologizing. “That had become who he was,” Brooks says. Advertising Notice Instead, Curtis thrived. Vice President Mike Pence speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, on April 23, 2020. Elections and Campaigns. Curtis was a member of the Kaw (also called Kanza) Nation. Curtis gained some fame as a talented horse rider, known on the circuit as “Indian Charlie.” But his grandparents on both sides encouraged him to pursue a professional career, and he became a lawyer and then a politician. or Apparently, Glen did not get along with other dogs at the White House and was given to Mrs. Cora Newton, the wife of Herbert Hoover's secretary, Walter Newton. When he died of a heart attack in 1936, he was still living in the capital. After Curtis' death in 1936, his name quickly faded. I think he tried his best and I think he regretted, in the end, being assimilationist.”. “No man or boy ever received better advice, it was the turning point in my life.”. Story produced by Mary Lou Teel. Smithsonian Institution. Postmaster General Walter F. Brown proved valuable to Hoover as the President's chief co… ", "We wouldn't know who Charles Curtis was had he gone with his Native grandmother to Oklahoma. And as for the Kaw Nation, they've rebounded in number, and in 2002 purchased acreage for a memorial park in Kansas – a return to their ancestral land. Dannenberg said, "I don't think many people around really knew much about him or realized how remarkable he was.". Thirteen-year-old Charles expected to join the migration, but his Indian grandmother commanded the boy to stay in Topeka with his White grandmother and assimilate. Just two blocks away from the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka, you'll find a stately brick home with two domes. Rocca asked, "What would be lost if the house weren't there?". "I would say 99% of everyone in this country does not realize the state of Kansas takes its name from our people, the Kaw people.". In office, he was a loyal Republican and an advocate for women’s suffrage and child labor laws. His mother died when he was just three, and he was left in the care of his Indian grandmother. Serving from 1974 to 1977, Gerald Ford was the 38th president of the … California Privacy/Information We Collect. Hoover's contributions toward the Treaty of Versailles preceded his appointment as United States Secretary of Commerce. Hoover’s reputation as a humanitarian—earned during and after World War I as he rescued millions of Europeans from starvation —faded from public consciousness when his administration proved unable to alleviate widespread joblessness, homelessness, and hunger in his own country during the early years of the Great Depression. “They recognized that he was one-eighth Indian, but he had served the interests of white people for a long, long time,” Grinde says. His rise also tells a broader story of how prominent Native Americans viewed how their communities should assimilate within a predominately white society and government. In 1873, the federal government forced the Kaw south to Indian Territory, which would later become Oklahoma. Next week, when she takes the oath of office, Senator Kamala Harris will make history as the first woman, first African American, and first person of South Asian heritage to become vice president of the United States. The best-known event of his term involved a dispute over social protocol between Curtis’ sister, Dolly, and Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice. 31st United States President. Privacy Statement Many of the assimilationist policies he backed had ultimately devastating effects on the lives of Indians, leading to the dissolution of tribal governments and the break-up of communal lands. Curtis also supported Native American boarding schools, in which children were taken from their families and denied access to their own languages and cultures. Most of these had, however, been appointed to several prominent offices. But she won’t be the first person of color in the office. "He learned how to ride horses, he could speak the language.". When he was young, Curtis’ mother died, and his father fought in the Civil War for the United States. "He lived with the Kaw people on the reservation," said Pauline Sharp, a member of the Kaw Nation. California Do Not Sell My Info “He’s proud of his heritage and yet he wants to be in a position where he can do something to support Native issues. Historian Jeanne Eder Rhodes, a retired professor at the University of Alaska and enrolled member of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, says land division under the Dawes and Curtis Acts ultimately “destroyed everything” for many Native American tribes. That honor belongs to Charles Curtis, an enrolled member of the Kaw Nation who served as President Herbert Hoover’s veep for his entire first term from 1929 to 1933. He refused a salary, as he did throughout his entire life, never taking payment for public service. Rocca asked, "Do you think having to go between worlds sort of trained him for politics in a sense? Beginning in the 1970s, however, Hoover's reputation began to recover. "It felt wonderful to be back home! Continue By this time, there was already bad blood between Curtis and Hoover. Terms of Use After being raised among the Kaw Tribe in … Despite his assimilationist politics, throughout his career Curtis honored his Kaw heritage. That honor belongs to Charles Curtis, an enrolled member of the Kaw Nation who served as President Herbert Hoover’s veep for his entire first term from 1929 to 1933. And it turns out his grandmother was right. Grinde cites the schools as a factor in the population decline of Native Americans between 1870 and the 1930s. “What do you do when you’re in a situation like Curtis?” Rhodes says. He had an Indian jazz band play at the 1928 inauguration and decorated the vice presidential office with Native American artifacts. Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was an American attorney and Republican politician from Kansas who served as the 31st vice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933, becoming the first Native American and the first person of color to hold the office of vice president. During World War I, he headed the American Relief Committee which helped Americans stranded in Europe.He then was the head of the Commission for the Relief of Belgium and the American Relief Administration which sent out tons of food and supplies to Europe. She has written for JSTOR Daily, the Daily Beast, the Boston Globe, HuffPost, and Vice, among others. © 2021 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. To balance the ticket, Republicans turned to Curtis, from the farm state of Kansas. Herbert Hoover's Career Before the Presidency. Given to Lou Hoover by Florence B. Ilch, owner of Bellhaven Collie Kennels of Red Bank, N. J., in November 1928 at the age of eight months. "I think he believed he was doing the right thing," said Henry. In 1928, Charles Curtis -- a Native American lawmaker and member of the Kaw Nation -- was elected as President Herbert Hoover's vice president. Hoover White House Pets Bellhaven Behoover (Glen), a Collie. Herbert Hoover’s vice president, Charles Curtis, was American Indian Charles Curtis, from the Library of Congress. He was just a popular kid.”. Curtis rose within the Republican Party that dominated Kansas and became a congressman, then senator, and eventually Senate majority leader. Abuse was rampant. As for his former home in Topeka, Don and Nova Cottrell died last year, months apart. His Vice-President, Charles Curtis, was the first Native American to hold that office, being a … The adolescent Curtis wanted to move with his community, but, according to his Senate biography, his Kaw grandmother talked him into staying with his paternal grandparents and continuing his education. Curtis was born in 1860 in what was then the Kansas Territory to a White father and an Indian mother. Curtis, for those unfamiliar, served as vice president from 1929 to 1933, under President Herbert Hoover. "Well, knowing my Native grandmother, I know his Native grandmother had a strong influence on him. "The Kaw people are the indigenous people of Kansas," said James Pepper Henry, CEO of the First Americans Museum, slated to open in September in Oklahoma City, and vice chairman of the Kaw Nation. Although the couple was retired, they spent the next 25 years painstakingly restoring the home's parquet flooring, gleaming chandeliers and stained glass, eventually opening it to the public as a museum, dedicated to the man who once lived there: Charles Curtis. Hoover's cabinet choices were generally strong ones. When he was chosen for the vice presidential slot on the Republican ticket, Kaw communities in Oklahoma declared “Curtis Day,” and some of his Kaw relations attended the inauguration. The Little-Known Story of Queen Victoria's Black Goddaughter, The History Behind Amazon's 'One Night in Miami', What 'Bridgerton' Gets Wrong About Corsets, Fourteen Fun Facts About Love and Sex in the Animal Kingdom, Meet Joseph Rainey, the First Black Congressman, The State of American Craft Has Never Been Stronger. Soon after he became president, the Great Depression started. In fact, he may not have even survived.". In 1901, Hoover and his wife made their home in London and raised two sons, Herbert and Allan, taking them sometimes on mining exploration trips around the world. "I'm guessing that might have been a factor in clearly his belief on this issue?" His personality wins people over—unfortunately, racists can like a person of color and still be a racist, and I think that’s kind of what happened with Charlie. The standouts, like Secretary of State Henry Stimson, Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur, Secretary of the Navy Charles Adams, and Attorney General William Mitchell, more than compensated for lesser lights such as Secretary of War James Good, Secretary of Labor James Davis, Secretary of Commerce Robert Lamont, and Secretary of Agriculture Arthur Hyde. “Some of them are opposed to the idea, some of them are opposed to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, some of them are working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”. “He had a knack for conversation,” Brooks says. For some white people with no cultural links to Native nations, it might be a point of pride to claim that their high cheekbones marked them as descendants of an “American Indian princess.”. 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