Unfortunately for him, that scenario didn’t pan out; Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover won on the first ballot. Meet Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation and Herbert Hoover’s vice president from 1928 to 1932. 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. “[The Curtis Act] enabled the dissolution of many tribal governments in Oklahoma on the path to Oklahoma becoming a state,” says Donald Grinde, a historian at the University at Buffalo who has Yamasse heritage. In 1928, Charles Curtis -- a Native American lawmaker and member of the Kaw Nation -- was elected as President Herbert Hoover's vice president. Despite the racist treatment of the Kaw by white Kansans—which included land theft and murder—many whites were obviously willing to vote for Curtis. He also previously served as the Senate Majority Leader from 1924 to 1929. Soon after he became president, the Great Depression started. 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. In 1932 the Hoover-Curtis ticket lost in a landslide defeat to New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Speaker of the House John Nance Garner. Grinde cites the schools as a factor in the population decline of Native Americans between 1870 and the 1930s. In office, he was a loyal Republican and an advocate for women’s suffrage and child labor laws. ", How did that feel? Henry said, "She wanted the best for him, and the best for him was to go live with his White family. “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. For many years, both scholars and the American public held Hoover in extremely low esteem, blaming him for the Great Depression and criticizing his efforts to solve the crisis. "It hadn't been well cared for. Gerald Ford. 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. Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's vice president, was of half Native American and half white ancestry, making him the first person of color to serve as VP. "I think a lot of history would be lost," she replied. Decades before she was born, a man with Native American heritage served as Herbert Hoover’s vice president from 1929-1933. By this time, there was already bad blood between Curtis and Hoover. As Curtis approached his late 60s, already having achieved so much, he had one more rung to climb on the political ladder. Watch CBS News anytime, anywhere with the our 24/7 digital news network. In 1933 Hoover welcomed Franklin D. Roosevelt, who defeated him, as the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. As for his former home in Topeka, Don and Nova Cottrell died last year, months apart. "He lived with the Kaw people on the reservation," said Pauline Sharp, a member of the Kaw Nation. People got sick. Hoover White House Pets Bellhaven Behoover (Glen), a Collie. “Lots of Indian women chose not to have children.”. 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. Remarkable indeed. After Curtis' death in 1936, his name quickly faded. Herbert Hoover won the nomination for president in 1928, despite objections from farmers. Instead, Curtis thrived. Asked to be vice president by Herbert Hoover, Curtis joined the ticket in 1928 and the pair won in a landslide. There was typhoid, even starvation.". At the time, however, Curtis’ positions were far from unique among Native Americans. Certainly mine did.". He served under President Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933 as the first Native American vice president. But what about his race? His mother died when he was just three, and he was left in the care of his Indian grandmother. 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. In the Senate, Curtis, a Republican, became a force, serving as Majority Leader. Story produced by Mary Lou Teel. “And of course, that [opened up] tribal land in Oklahoma to white settlers, sooners.”. 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. Took them 17 days. In 1928, Charles Curtis — a Native American lawmaker and member of the Kaw Nation — was elected as President Herbert Hoover's vice president. Curtis was vice president … Dolly acted as Curtis’s hostess since his wife had died before he became vice president, and asserted that this gave her the right to be seated before the wives of congressmen and diplomats at formal dinners. Curtis was born in 1860 to a white father from a wealthy Topeka family and a mother who was one quarter Kaw (a tribe also known as Kanza or Kansa). "Had he been alive today, I think he would have understood that some of the things that he believed in at that time did have a significant negative impact on Native peoples.". asked Rocca. In a landslide victory in 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected the 31st U.S. President. 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. Cookie Policy "It felt wonderful to be back home! 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. Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa, where he enjoyed fishing in the local creek and working in his father’s blacksmith shop.Hoover lived in Iowa only for the first decade of his life. His detractors wove and promoted a myth labeling Hoover as heartless, inept and reactionary which unjustly prevails to … "My mom loved the house; it's probably one of the prettiest houses in Topeka," said Patty Dannenberg. I think he tried his best and I think he regretted, in the end, being assimilationist.”. In 1928 Curtis, running with Herbert Hoover, was elected the 31st Vice President of the United States. Curtis, Kansas’ beloved veteran senator, offered the perfect choice to balance out the Commerce Secretary. But she won’t be the first person of color in the office. … Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. Her parents, Nova and Don Cottrell, purchased the local landmark in 1993. “He had a knack for conversation,” Brooks says. Vice President Mike Pence speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, on April 23, 2020. 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. 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. Mark Brooks, site administrator for the Kansas Historical Society’s Kaw Mission site, says Curtis was known for his personal charisma. 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. 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.”. Grinde says Republican Party leaders and voters would have been aware of Curtis’ Kaw identity. “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.”. Herbert Hoover’s vice president, Charles Curtis, was American Indian Charles Curtis, from the Library of Congress. Livia Gershon is a freelance journalist based in New Hampshire. The house is now for sale. 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. Curtis … Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation who grew up in Kansas, became Herbert Hoover's vice president in the 1928 presidential election, the first and only Native American to … Despite his assimilationist politics, throughout his career Curtis honored his Kaw heritage. “They recognized that he was one-eighth Indian, but he had served the interests of white people for a long, long time,” Grinde says. Serving from 1974 to 1977, Gerald Ford was the 38th president of the … “He was just a very likeable person even early on when he was just a young boy in Topeka.”. When he died of a heart attack in 1936, he was still living in the capital. She has written for JSTOR Daily, the Daily Beast, the Boston Globe, HuffPost, and Vice, among others. "Well, knowing my Native grandmother, I know his Native grandmother had a strong influence on him. After all he had achieved to reach the vice presidency, Curtis’ time in office was anticlimactic. ", "That's a hard one," said Sharp. 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. 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. 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. "I think he believed he was doing the right thing," said Henry. Hoover's cabinet choices were generally strong ones. Stream CBSN live or on demand for FREE on your TV, computer, tablet, or smartphone. Terms of Use And, even if many Native American people were unhappy with the land allotment plans he had championed, many Kaw were proud of him. But with the onset of the Great Depression, the ticket's bid for reelection went down in flames. 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. And I want people to remember him, I think, in a good way.". “That had become who he was,” Brooks says. Keep up-to-date on: © 2021 Smithsonian Magazine. 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. Curtis grew up speaking Kanza and French before he learned English. "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. He also notes that the relationship of white Americans of the time with Native American identity was complicated. He became a successful lawyer, and was elected to the U.S. House of representatives. Rocca asked, "Do you think having to go between worlds sort of trained him for politics in a sense? Postmaster General Walter F. Brown proved valuable to Hoover as the President's chief co… 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). “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. Hoover remained suspicious of his former rival and, despite Curtis’ enormous expertise in the workings of Congress, kept him away from policy. 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On these ocean voyages, Hoover turned his attention to reading, giving himself some of the liberal arts education he had missed in the narrow curriculum of Stanford. The policies Curtis pursued in Congress and then as vice president, specifically those on Native issues, cloud his legacy today despite his groundbreaking achievements. Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. “No man or boy ever received better advice, it was the turning point in my life.”. “The one thing that might have lightened the persecution of Curtis was that he was half white,” Brooks says. ", "I think that's true," Henry replied. Elected in 1928, Charles Curtis became the first, and only, Native American Vice President of the United States. “What do you do when you’re in a situation like Curtis?” Rhodes says. Elections and Campaigns. "I think that being a mixed blooded person, in some ways being an ambassador between two worlds, did prepare him for American politics.". “He’s proud of his heritage and yet he wants to be in a position where he can do something to support Native issues. Charles Curtis, the first Native American vice president. ", Rocca asked, "How would you like Charles Curtis to be remembered? The best-known event of his term involved a dispute over social protocol between Curtis’ sister, Dolly, and Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice. In 1928 Curtis, running with Herbert Hoover, was elected the 31st Vice President of the United States. “Hoover is a … Washington insiders joked that the vice president could only get into the White House if he bought a ticket for the tour. Could Indoor Vertical Farms Feed Livestock? Vote Now! Hoover worked from 1896-1914 as a Mining Engineer. 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. AMES, Iowa — In 1929 Herbert Hoover, former Commerce Secretary, and Iowa Native was inaugurated as President of the United States. Curtis was a member of the Kaw (also called Kanza) Nation. Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's VP from 1929-1932, was the first person of color to be Vice President of the US. Henry said, "Women have always had leadership roles within our tribe, and been really the backbone and strength of our tribe.". or Privacy Statement Copyright © 2021 CBS Interactive Inc.All rights reserved. 15 presidents previously served as vice president. California Privacy/Information We Collect. "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.". A member of the Republican Party, he held office during the onset of the Great Depression. “He’s light-complected, he’s not dark-skinned like a lot of Kanza. 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. He was given little to do in the office, though he did preside over the opening of the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Sharp said, "They walked to their new home in Indian territory. And, she said, if Curtis hadn’t supported assimilation, he would never have gotten far in the era’s white-dominated politics. And in 1898, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, he drafted what became known as the Curtis Act, extending the Dawes Act’s provisions to the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes” of Oklahoma. And yet, Brooks says, Curtis did not lose his taste for politics. 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. "As the first Native American to make it that high in the United States government, that's a source of pride for us. Son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the Presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an engineer, administrator, and humanitarian. Curtis also supported Native American boarding schools, in which children were taken from their families and denied access to their own languages and cultures. 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. 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. In fact, he may not have even survived.". Most of these had, however, been appointed to several prominent offices. Ninety-two years ago Charles Curtis was inaugurated as America's first (and only) Native American vice president. 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. 31st United States President. Editor: Steven Tyler. “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. Herbert Hoover: Impact and Legacy. 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. 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. He had an Indian jazz band play at the 1928 inauguration and decorated the vice presidential office with Native American artifacts. 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. Turning point in my life. ” the ticket, Republicans turned to Curtis, Hoover! Both his sets of grandparents and for eight years, he was young, Curtis also consistently for. 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