Did the USA have a Native American ("Indian") Vice President?

[jaimest]

While answering another question here, I saw this list - of Native American political figures.

U.S. Senate:

Hiram R. Revels, Lumbee from Mississippi, 1870-1871
Mathew Stanley Quay, Abenaki or Delaware from Pennsylvania, 1887-1899 and 1901-1904
**Charles Curtis, Kaw from Kansas, 1907-1912 and 1915-1929 (Vice-President from 1929-1933) **
Robert L. Owens, Cherokee from Oklahoma, 1907-1925
*

I never remember hearing about a “Native American” Vice-President. So I did a quick search. And according to this site…

http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/ea/vp/vpcurtis.html

According to them, Custis, Herbert Hoover’s running mate, He was one-eighth Kansa Indian. So I suppose he was no more “Indian” than many “whites” in certain parts of the country.

But I know being an eighth black (Octoroon) legally made one “Colored” or “Negro” at one time (certainly in the 1920’s). Also, I believe some Native American groups have blood quantums of one-eighth or less…and of course “race” is more a matter of self identity or public attitudes than genetic ancestry in many cases.

So was Vice President Charles Custis actually an “Indian” - a member of the Kansa nation, or otherwise legally Indian. Or was he a “white” man with a distant Indian ancestor. At the time he was in office, was his background ever an issue?

Any Herbert Hoover fanatics here know more about the man? I can’t even find a picture.

[fixed coding]

[Edited by bibliophage on 12-04-2001 at 10:15 PM]

[jaimest]

…forgot to close the italics…:o

[Fear_Itself]

I have no information about Curtis, but apparently there is no legal federal standard for recognition as an Indian:

From the Bureau of Indian Affairs website:

No single Federal or tribal criterion establishes a person’s identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine who is an Indian eligible to participate in their programs. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership. To determine what the criteria might be for agencies or Tribes, you must contact each entity directly.

To be eligible for Bureau of Indian Affairs services, an Indian must (1) be a member of a Tribe recognized by the Federal Government, (2) one-half or more Indian blood of tribes indigenous to the United States (25 USC 479) ; or (3) must, for some purposes, be of one-fourth or more Indian ancestry. By legislative and administrative decision, the Aleuts, Eskimos and Indians of Alaska are eligible for BIA services. Most of the BIA’s services and programs, however, are limited to Indians living on or near Indian reservations.

The Bureau of the Census counts anyone an Indian who declares himself or herself to be an Indian. In 1990 the Census figures showed there were 1,959,234 American Indians and Alaska Natives living in the United States (1,878,285 American Indians, 57,152 Eskimos, and 23,797 Aleuts). This is a 37.9 percent increase over the 1980 recorded total of 1,420,000. The increase is attributed to improved census taking and more self- identification during the 1990 count.

So if a tribe accepts you as an Indian, I guess you are in.

[Captain_Amazing]

Well, here’s a picture of him:

http://www.kshs.org/places/kawmission/graphics/curtis2300.jpg

For a real brief history:

Custis was born in 1860 in Kansas. In 1865, his mother died and father left, and he went to live with his maternal grandmother on the Kaw Reservation. He stayed there until 1868, when he went to live with his paternal grandparents in Topeka. In 1884, he was elected county prosecuting attorney. He was elected to the House in '92, and then ran for senate in '04 and lost. Finally, he was elected in 1907, and served until 1912, when he was defeated. He got reelected to the Senate in 1914, and became Republican Majority leader in 1924. Hoover picked him up as his running mate in '28. After losing in '32, he retired and stayed in DC, until he died of a heart attack in '36.

Most of the bills he supported were Indian, union, and farmer legislation. He was a big backer of the bill to make Native Americans citizens, he got a bill passed exempting unions from the Sherman act, and he was the author of a major farm relief bill.

[Captain_Amazing]

BTW, he thought he was 1/8 Indian, and said so, but it turns out he was probably at least 3/8 Indian. Here’s a family tree.

http://www.cjnetworks.com/~hvahrt/ksstudies/ccfamily.html

[Sofa_King]

Well, the Nation of the Kaw is and has always been a federally recognized tribe, so there’s no problem there.

Nowdays, some tribes have a “blood quantum” requirement, but few did at the turn of the century. A quick look at the Kaw website does not show their membership requirements. They do, however, mention this:

In 1902, Tribal representatives presented a proposed agreement to Congress (which was prepared in part by a follow tribesman, U. S. Representative, Charles Curtis, who would later be elected Vice President of the United States). This proposed aqreement influenced Congress to pass an Act which allowed for each member in the Tribe to receive 405 acres of reservation land with the remaining land to be opened up to white settlement. Shortly thereafter qualified members could have federal restrictions removed from their land resulting in most of them losing their land.

Ah, the wonders of the Allotment Era, damn it to Hell.

Anyway, the Kaw claim him now, and he was in fact working for or with the Tribe on at least one issue. With just what we know from the information presented here and using the standards employed by the Branch of Acknowledgment and Research, we can note his reservation residency, his proven and admitted descent from the tribe, and this example of his working in favor of the tribe politically and conclude that he was probably considered a member then. It would be nice to hear it directly from him, though.

(Not that those poor souls at BAR have the time to divert themselves in such a fashion, anyway. Get back to work, you guys! You’ve got two hundred petitioners waiting on you!)

[Etaoin]

Why is there a giant ghostly hand about to encircle his head?

http://www.kshs.org/places/kawmission/graphics/curtis2300.jpg