ARTHUR C.

PARKER, THE PAN-INDIAN MOVEMENT, AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF

MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY

David E. Witt
SUNY Buffalo

Arthur C. Parker (1881–1955) is well known amongst American archaeologists as former New York
State Archaeologist, former director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences (now Rochester
Museum and Science Center), first president of the Society for American Archaeology, and prodigious
author of over 450 publications. However, and unlike his career as archaeologist, anthropologist,
ethnographer, and curator, his contributions to the Pan-Indian movement have gone largely unnoticed
within the archaeological community. After introducing the Society of American Indians (SAI), this
paper discusses Parker’s contributions to, and involvement with, the Pan-Indian Movement. By
presenting Parker’s thoughts regarding race, education, and government policy as documented in SAI
journals and their reflection in his professional practice, the paper informs a more complete
understanding of his academic career as well the development of anthropology as a discipline.

Arthur C. Parker (1881–1955) est bien connu auprès des archéologues américains en tant qu’ancien
archéologue d’état de New York, ancien directeur du Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences
(maintenant le Rochester Museum and Science Center), premier président de la Society for American
Archaeology, et le prestigieux auteur de plus de quatre-cent-cinquante publications. Contrairement à
sa carrière d’archéologue, d’anthropologue, d’ethnographe, et de curateur, ses contributions au
mouvement Pan-indianiste ont été largement ignorés au sein de la communauté archéologique. Suite à
la présentation de la Society of American Indians (SAI), cet article discutera des contributions et de la
participation de Parker au sein du mouvement Pan-indianiste. En présentant la pensée de Parker face
à la notion de race, l’éducation, et la politique gouvernementale tel que documenté dans les revues de
la SAI et leur reflet dans sa pratique professionnelle, cet article élabore une compréhension plus
complète de sa carrière académique ainsi que du développement de l’anthropologie en tant que
discipline.

INTRODUCTION

Much has been written about Arthur Caswell Parker (April 5, 1881–January 1, 1955), a man of
indigenous descent who became the first Native American archaeologist. Archaeologists herald him as
consummate researcher, author of over 450 publications, New York State Archaeologist, director of
the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences, receiver of two honorary doctorate degrees, honorary
trustee of the New York State Historical Association, and first president of the Society for American
Archaeology, among many other achievements. He is held up as an ideal example of a man able to
navigate both Euro-American and indigenous cultures, “at home on either side of the buckskin curtain”
(Porter 2001:xiii; Thomas 2000:213). However, this claim often belies that critical engagement of the

David E. Witt • Department of Anthropology, SUNY Buffalo, 380 MFAC, Buffalo, NY 14261; e-mail: dwitt@buffalo.edu

Northeast Anthropology No. 85-86, 2018, pp. 73–87

Copyright ©2018 by Northeast Anthropology

73
74 Northeast Anthropology No. 85/86, 2018

man and his legacy has been limited; discussion of his cross-disciplinary pursuits from an
archaeological perspective even less so.
Parker’s life is more complicated than the character presented to students in Intro to Archaeology
courses. At a very basic level, his identity was more nuanced than the “Native American” taught to
freshman: Arthur C. Parker was descendent from the Seneca through his father’s line. In a patrilineal
society such as America, this would make him Seneca by birth, not the Scots-English of his mother’s
European descent. However, within the matrilineal Haudenosaunee, he was European, not Seneca, by
blood (Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:29). This accident of birth placed him in a liminal position
throughout life, one mirroring the positions of his ancestors: his grandfather was Nicholson H. Parker,
a graduate of the Albany Normal School teacher’s college, civil engineer, and chief clerk of the Seneca
Nation of Indians (Armstrong 1978; Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:30). Nicholson’s brother, Arthur’s
great-uncle, was Ely S. Parker, secretary to Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War and the first
indigenous Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Armstrong 1978; Parker 1919a). Nicholson’s and Ely’s
mother, Elizabeth Johnson Parker, descended from Handsome Lake and Red Jacket, who were
themselves seminal figures in the history of the Seneca and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Colwell-
Chanthaphonh 2009:32).
Parker’s lineage would seemingly indicate a high social status, but it forced him to navigate life as
an outsider in many senses, despite the achievements of his father’s line. Yet Parker’s own actions also
contributed to his ambiguity. As an archaeologist, he did not shy away from activities that angered
indigenous people, such as the excavation of hundreds of burials throughout his career (e.g., Parker
1907, 1916e, 1919b, 1922). These activities, though important within the history of New York
archaeology (Sullivan 1992), resulted with the shipment of human remains and associated funerary
goods to various museums throughout the Northeast, actions that understandably were not well
accepted by Haudenosaunee people for being inconsistent with indigenous values (Colwell-
Chanthaphonh et al. 2010:234). However, Parker also spent seven years (from 1911 to 1918) deeply
involved in the Society of American Indians (SAI), an important institution of the Pan-Indian
Movement. It was during this time that Parker was most outspoken regarding indigenous rights and
federal policy towards Native Americans and when he advocated for a decidedly assimilationist
position (Berg 2000; Hertzberg 1979).
This work within the SAI has been presented to various audiences within the humanities and social
sciences (i.e., Berg 2000; Hertzberg 1979; Maddox 2006; Porter 2001; Smithers 2013; Taylor 2016). It
has also been referenced in works directed toward archaeologists and anthropologists (e.g., Ritchie
1955, 1956) but has seen only one in-depth discussion meant for that audience—that of Chip Colwell-
Chanthaphonh’s1 (2009) Inheriting the Past: The Making of Arthur C. Parker and Indigenous
Archaeology. While Colwell notably dealt with the topic, he focused mostly on the circumstances of
Parker’s life and his influence on the field of archaeology. This paper compliments Colwell’s
impressive effort by presenting Parker’s work within the SAI and the wider Pan-Indian Movement, not
as an aside to his work in archaeology but to explore Parker’s political beliefs and examine how those
interacted with his professional work. It is hoped that by providing this context, archaeologists will be
more fully aware of the complicated relationship between early anthropology and indigenous peoples
and how it continues to impact both groups today.

PARKER AND EARLY ANTHROPOLOGY

It is important to contextualize Parker’s work within the greater sphere of anthropology at the
beginning of the twentieth century. Parker advanced important practices, particularly the use of
ethnographic examples to interpret artifacts (Trigger 1989:271), yet he was constrained by the
disciplinary structures of archaeology (Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. 2010:234), similar to Giddens’
Witt Arthur C. Parker and the Pan-Indian Movement 75

social structuration (Giddens 1979, 1986, 1991). Parker’s disciplinary context follows two parallel
tracks: a shift in the nature of professionalism within the field of archaeology and that of a discussion
of race and ethnicity within anthropology. Colwell-Chanthaphonh (2009) has written many pages on
this topic, but the following discussion is provided within this paper to help the reader ground Parker’s
work.
First, archaeology was growing into an anthropological science during this period (Hertzberg
1979:48; Porter 2001:48–49). The discipline was originally practiced by researchers associated with
museums and related institutions, such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, and the Field Museum in
Chicago. Aspiring individuals such as Parker were trained in personal mentorships. Other researchers,
such as Franz Boas, embodied a shift to university-based study and a requirement that an archaeologist
hold an advanced degree (a requirement that still exists to this day). As Parker chose to remain with
museums, rather than aim for formal education, he never did earn an advanced degree in the field (Berg
2000:238).2 While this decision did not limit his potential, as evidenced by his publishing record, it
precluded early exposure to important theoretical developments in the field (Porter 2001:53).
The foremost example of these developments was the discussion surrounding cultural evolution.
Cultural evolution was a concept, advocated by Lewis Henry Morgan,3 Edward B. Tylor, and others,
that societies evolved along a unidirectional track from savagery to civilization (Morgan 1877; Tylor
1865; see also Stocking 1982). Race was used as a shorthand to physically differentiate members of
various societies, and thus could indicate an individual’s level of advancement (at least within certain
contexts such as the archaeological record) (Hertzberg 1979:49). This was contrasted with Boas’ ideas
on cultural particularism and relativism that rejected innate inferiority and which introduced a
“pluralistic and relativistic approach to culture [that] complicated the issue” (Porter 2001:55, see also
Boas 1911, Moore 2009). Porter discusses the importance of this distinction in regard to Parker’s
thinking:
Whereas Morgan’s evolutionary analysis marked out clear stages of human
development through which it was possible to pass in a generation, Boas’s [sic]
work would reinforce the significance of culture as the ultimate determinant
of individual personality, and it could not, therefore, be used to argue for rapid
and easy Indian assimilative change….So, from Parker’s perspective, cultural
evolution…offered much more than Boas and the complexity of his theory
[Porter 2001:55].

Likewise, “Boasian anthropology, for all of its contributions to social science, attacked the very
anthropological conceptions which were most useful to a man in Parker’s position” (Hertzberg
1979:69).
Within Morgan’s framework, Parker’s Seneca ancestors were, by definition, less advanced than his
European ancestors, and this difference led Parker to a position of liminality that defined him
throughout his career as an anthropologist, archaeologist, ethnologist, and curator (Colwell-
Chanthaphonh 2009). However, it was this very liminality that Parker actively utilized to advance his
career (Porter 2001:141). As Parker himself illustrated, he believed that an individual was not bound
by race to a specific level of advancement, but that individuals were responsible for their growth. For
indigenous peoples, this included their assimilation into the surrounding Euro-American culture and
adopting Euro-American normative values. Parker stated that no nation could “afford to permit any
person or body of people to exist in a condition at variance with the ideals of that nation” (Parker 1911,
from Hertzberg 1979:59). Hertzberg discusses this point, claiming that “for Parker, assimilation was an
active and mutual process. The Indian should both accustom himself to the culture that engulfs him and
become an active factor in it” (Hertzberg 1979:59). This ideal of assimilation would play a key role in
76 Northeast Anthropology No. 85/86, 2018

Parker’s involvement of the SAI, the greater Pan-Indian Movement, and his beliefs that indigenous
opposition to archaeology was misguided and ignorant (Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:126). For these
reasons, Parker maintained an ideological adherence to Morgan’s cultural evolution, while many of his
contemporaries rejected the concept in favor of Boas’ cultural relativism during the 1910s.

THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN INDIANS

The SAI was the first national organization dedicated to indigenous rights, which was itself
operated by indigenous peoples rather than neighboring Euro-Americans. This is in contrast to
organizations such as the Indian Rights Association, the Indian Citizenship Association, and the Indian
Board of Cooperation (Smithers 2013:264). The impetus for the formation of the SAI was a call by
Ohio State University sociologist Fayette A. McKenzie in 1909, who desired “a national organization
of American Indians to hasten the assimilation of Indians into American Society” (Berg 2000:238). In
response, a group of college-educated Native Americans met in Columbus, Ohio, on Columbus Day
1911 to form the American Indian Association, which was quickly renamed the SAI. The founders of
the SAI, which included Laura Cornelius Kellogg (Oneida), Charles Edwin Dagenett (Peoria), Charles
A. Eastman (Santee Dakota), Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai-Apache), Thomas L. Sloan (Omaha), Henry
Standing Bear (Oglala Lakota), and Parker, acted with the purpose of awakening “in every individual
Indian ‘the realization of personal responsibility for self and race, and the duty of responding to the call
to activity’” (Berg 2000:239).
Prior to the foundation of the SAI, individuals had called for an indigenous rights organization, but
circumstances were not favorable. However, events occurred that led McKenzie to believe that the
environment for such a national organization had improved (Nicholson 2011:62). These included the
development of Progressivism, the passing of the Burke Act of 1906, and the founding of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. The Burke Act was particularly important,
because under the legislation, reservation land was broken up and distributed in severalty, or “allotted,”
to indigenous people deemed “competent and capable of managing his or her affairs at any time.”
Citizenship would be granted to those individuals after a probationary period of 25 years. As a result,
it “exacerbated confusion regarding Indian citizenship, and created a sense of urgency for a
comprehensive federal framework regulating Indian political and legal status that could be applied
consistently among all Indians” (Nicholson 2011:62).
While the SAI was founded and operated by indigenous people, it promoted “a strong
assimilationist agenda, which held that for Indians must melt into America’s ethnic stew while retaining
the best of their Indian heritage” (Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:140). Parker, who served SAI in various
capacities, advocated that “the Indian must become more active on his own behalf and that, while Indian
culture has much richness to be retained even in the gaining of equality with non-Indian America,
Indians must grasp that best of what white people have to offer” (Berg 2000:239–240). The hope was
that as indigenous people assimilated into the surrounding culture, “the distinguishing virtues, traits,
and characteristics of the Indian which are so strong—hospitality, loyalty, veracity, eloquence, political
ability and democracy, with many more attributes—will so modify the white race of the future that the
Indian traits will be conspicuous” (unattributed article, “The Indian Nations of New York State,” April
26, 1908, SC17396, box 44, vol. 2, New York State Library, from Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:141).
As such, the internal aspects of indigenous people would be preserved within the merged culture even
if indigenous people were indistinguishable from Euro-Americans politically and culturally. This was
for “the honor of the race and the good of the country” (The Purpose of the American Indian
Association, Undated, SAI Papers, Roll 4, Frame 1018, from Nicholson 2011:64).
The SAI existed as an organization from its founding at 1911 to its dissolution in 1923 under less
than amicable events. These related to religious differences4 and overall approval of the Bureau of
Witt Arthur C. Parker and the Pan-Indian Movement 77

Indian Affairs (BIA), the federal agency that oversaw the United States’ interactions with indigenous
people (Berg 2000). The SAI as a whole had a history of concerns relating to the men who filled the
role of Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Parker, as secretary of the SAI, wrote the following to President
Taft in 1912:

The man to be appointed to this important position should be one whose

honesty, integrity and sympathetic and practicable interest in the Indian race
is beyond question. He should be a man whose standing is such that he would
command the hearty support of the best people of the country, regardless of
politics or religious affiliations” [Parker to William H. Taft, letter, October 5,
1912, Labriola National American Indian Center, Department of Archives and
Manuscripts, Arizona State University, reel 6, from Berg 2000:240].

Many commissioners from the date of this letter to Parker’s death in 1955 did not meet these basic
requirements, and this led to an uneasy relationship between the two organizations. This relationship
worsened as the SAI unsuccessfully pressed the BIA to advocate for indigenous rights and the
appointment of indigenous people within the BIA (Berg 2000:241). This lack of success led to various
SAI members expressing discontent with the society, believing it to be too cautious and conservative
in its approach to the BIA and obstructive politicians (Berg 2000:241). Parker maintained a
conservative approach yet rightly feared that these divisions would lead to the dissolution of the SAI
(Berg 2000:244; Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:142; Porter 2001:Chapter 5).
However, the SAI did achieve some major goals during its short existence. The organization
maintained a publication, first the Quarterly Journal (1913–1915), and then the American Indian
Magazine (1915–1920). The society advocated for a national “American Indian Day,” which resulted
in various states declaring such a holiday, including Parker’s native New York. The signing of the
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which took place shortly after the organization fell apart, was a
validation of SAI—and Parker’s—activities (Porter 2001:140).5 The law, which was proposed by
Homer Snyder of New York and signed by President Coolidge, granted full U.S. citizenship to
indigenous peoples in an attempt to clarify their status after the Burke Act of 1906. As such, the SAI
was somewhat successful in its efforts.

Parker at the Society of American Indians

Parker’s role at the SAI evolved over the 12 years it existed. Initially secretary, Parker also served
as treasurer from 1911 to 1915, editor of the SAI’s Quarterly Journal and then the American Indian
Magazine, and finally, president from 1916 to 1918 (Berg 2000:239). Parker resigned from the
organization in 1920, a result of continued infighting and a shift within the SAI to become a lobbying
group (Porter 2001:136). His roles at the SAI coincided with his general interest in the Pan-Indian
Movement, as illustrated by his numerous reports regarding SAI conferences (e.g., Parker 1912b,
1912d, 1913, 1916a).
As editor of, and frequent contributor to, the SAI journals, Parker influenced the development of
the Pan-Indian Movement and Pan-Indian identity in general. The Quarterly Journal and its successor
“contributed to early twentieth-century American Indian intellectual history and the terms upon which
Parker and the journal’s contributors attempted to outline an intellectual platform from which to shape
its social and political message” (Smithers 2013:264). Parker utilized the journals to spread a narrative
of a group of improving, modern, indigenous individuals, hindered by a lack of education and political
structures rather than their race (Smithers 2013). This resulted in a substantial body of literature (e.g.,
78 Northeast Anthropology No. 85/86, 2018

Parker 1912c, 1914a, 1914b, 1915a, 1915b, 1915c, 1916c, 1916d, 1916g, 1918), yet Parker’s work
within the SAI and as editor is relatively unknown by archaeologists and anthropologists.
Many of Parker’s writings on indigenous rights and the status of Native Americans within
American society were published in the SAI publications rather than academic journals. As such, these
messages were meant primarily for an indigenous audience:

Parker had the challenge of instructing Native American readers about the
complexities of the political and economic challenges they faced, such as the
erosion of Indigenous sovereignty; loss of vast amounts of land because of the
allotment process; the federal government’s withholding of payments to tribal
members for the sale of allotment land; or the poverty and disease that the
reservation system bred under BIA governance [Smithers 2013:266].

This work, often contentious and negative, wore on Parker, as Gregory Smithers (2013:266)
discusses: “Parker became so consumed with the well-being of the journal that his private
correspondence reveals how he found it difficult to stop thinking about Indian affairs and his
responsibilities at the journal.” Yet this understanding may be incomplete, as Parker was conducting
this SAI-related work simultaneously with rebuilding the New York State Museum after an incredibly
destructive fire at the state capital in 1911 (Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:131; Porter 2001:76), founding
the New York State Archaeological Association in 1916 (Ritchie 1956:294), and publishing important
ethnological, historical, and archaeological texts such as The Code of Handsome Lake, the Seneca
Prophet (Parker 1912a), The Constitution of the Five Nations (Parker 1916b), The Senecas in the War
of 1812 (Parker 1916f), The Mound Builder Culture in New York (Parker 1919b), and the two volume
Archaeological History of New York (Parker 1922). With his articles and essays within the Quarterly
Journal and the American Indian Magazine, as well as the financial resources that Parker had to provide
to keep the society and its publications afloat (Porter 2001:Chapter 5), Parker’s simultaneous dedication
to both his academic pursuits and the SAI and his level of productivity is astonishing.6

Themes within Parker’s Literary Contributions to the Pan-Indian Movement

As stated previously, most of Parker’s offerings to the SAI journals revolved around the topics of
race, education, and government policy. An article dealing with each topic is briefly presented below
for consideration, with the goal of allowing the reader to better understand Parker’s beliefs. It will be
apparent that race is a common thread within these rather problematic offerings. It must be noted that
Parker was a product of his time, and he subscribed to commonly held racialist concepts. Yet it is
important to understand his perspectives on race and ethnicity, as they not only influenced the early-
twentieth-century discussion of indigenous assimilation but also inform his work in archaeology,
anthropology, ethnology, and so on.

Race

An example of Parker’s writing that clearly illustrates his understanding of race during this period
is “Problems of Race Assimilation in America, with Special Reference to the American Indian.” This
was an article written for the American Indian Magazine while Parker was serving as SAI president in
1916. In this article, Parker claims:

The initial condition of the race governs its power of taking on our American
civilization. American civilization touching the yellow race affects it
Witt Arthur C. Parker and the Pan-Indian Movement 79

differently than it does the black. It produces one initial effect on the white
man and another on the red. The final effect may be the same and produce a
competent citizen, but men of different races by reason of their ethnic and
cultural development are not equally able to grasp the meaning of civilization
as we know it and to understand its institutions and obligations. The German
needs less change in habits of thought than the Korean to become an American,
and then the German has the advantage because he is physically pleasing,
(being a white man), and does not excite racial prejudice. Soon he may be
mistaken for a native and excite no comment because of any peculiar form of
dress or type of face. The Korean carries the stamp of his Mongolian origin
forever and some deep instinct in our natures makes us dislike the Mongolian.
There is, therefore, an inequality in the conditions of assimilation [Parker
1916d:286, emphasis in original].

Parker continues, exploring the nature of race and difficulties inherit in assimilation for different
races (European, “Negro,” and American Indian). For example, indigenous people, who Parker
characterized as essentially conservative, assimilate “only as a matter of economic necessity” (Parker
1916d:296). However,

there is always prejudice against the economic nursling, the low grade
incompetent, the filthy and the unlike in purpose and custom regardless of race.
Tribal Indians who fit these descriptions and who have otherwise degenerated
are discriminated against socially but there is not a strong prejudice against the
competent, educated Indian of sterling character, who is engaged in the
world’s work [Parker 1916d:299].

Though this article’s message was widely contested (even among other SAI leaders, see Porter
2001:127–129), in it we can clearly see the racialist understanding to which Parker subscribed, in which
indigenous people started from a biased position as a matter of biology, which then impacted their
capability to engage with wider society. Yet as Parker himself illustrates, it was not impossible for
indigenous people to raise themselves up from barbarism to civilization, and once they did so were
“thoroughly American” (Parker 1916d:299).

Education

An example of Parker’s thinking specifically regarding education is “Industrial and Vocational

Training in Indian Schools,” a 1915 article written for the Quarterly Journal. In this article, Parker
advocates for a shift in the purpose of education:

It should no longer be thought that a schooling will lead a man away from the
burdens of actual labor. It must be recognized that the ditch-digger is as
important a man as the law clerk, and entitled to as much respect and
consideration….To have an adequate education fitting for a vocation, is the
right of every man. To give this kind of education is a duty of the state, for its
own welfare [Parker 1915b:86–87].

He continues, discussing the role of Indian schools in training indigenous children in various
occupations so that they could be self-sustaining and productive within the wider culture. However,
80 Northeast Anthropology No. 85/86, 2018

Parker finishes this article by stating that the goal of education is not merely so the individual could
support themselves but rather that those individuals who have the intellectual abilities

make themselves acquainted with all the arts and sciences that they are able to
master. They must become the reservoirs of the world’s knowledge, and out
of the facts that they know, bring forth products that are better than those the
world formerly possessed. Highly-educated men are a necessity and are the
only guarantee of civilization. The mere industrial worker will ruin the world
and bring it down to the depths of savagery. The stability of society, of ethics
and of government, and even the effectiveness of industry itself, is not
maintained by the man who works with his hands alone, howsoever important
he may be as the world’s motor energy. The world of men is balanced and
safeguarded by the few who are educated, in their several capacities, as fully
as possible [Parker 1915b:96].

In this example, it is clear that Parker sees the importance of vocational training but also proclaims
the higher value of a liberal education. Parker differentiates between the “mere industrial worker” and
“highly educated men” (again, with Parker himself serving as an example). Yet while both are to
assimilate within the larger culture, “the Indian race today needs men and women of its own blood who
are able by reason of their highly-cultivated intellects to understand the plight of their race, the remedies
that must be applied, the ultimate destiny of their race, and how to lead it to its inheritance” (Parker
1915b:96).

Government Policy

Finally, the last article presented as an example of Parker’s thinking is “The Indian, the County and
the Government: A Plea for an Efficient Indian Service” (Parker 1916c). This article was originally
delivered at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Indian Rights Association in December 1915 but was
published in 1916 in the American Indian Magazine.
In this article, Parker presents a solution for the “Indian Problem” that vexed American society.
The problem existed because indigenous people lacked a legal status, in other words, that they were not
American citizens:

I should rather say that it IS THE LACK OF LEGAL STATUS THAT

MAKES THE TASK SO ARDUOUS and complex. The ordinary citizen who
knows his general rights so well can have no adequate appreciation of what an
ill-defined status means to a mass of people….So long as the Indian has no
definite or assured status in this nation, so long as the Indian does not know
who he is or what his privileges and duties are, there can be no hope of
substantial progress for our race. With one voice we declare our first and chief
request is that Congress shall provide for a careful and wise definition of
Indian status [Parker 1916c:40, emphasis in original].

This status (or lack thereof) limited the ability of nonindigenous Americans to understand the plight of
Native Americans, prevented indigenous people from entering suits or claims in court, and maintained
the system of “bulk holdings and assessment” that, in turn, prevented individuals from understanding
their wealth (Parker 1916c:40–41; see also Parker 1913). As it was the role of the BIA to make “citizens
who are intelligent men and women and who shall be responsive to all the necessities and demands of
Witt Arthur C. Parker and the Pan-Indian Movement 81

the age,” the agency was shirking its responsibility to both its indigenous wards and taxpayers by not
advocating for a change in legal status (Parker 1916c:41). According to Parker, citizenship would solve
the problem.
It can be seen from these examples that Parker advocated for a specific course to raise indigenous
people from Morgan’s barbarism to true civilization: the federal government should convey all the
privileges and responsibilities of full citizenship on indigenous people; those people themselves are
then responsible for bettering their individual situations as quickly as possible via education, provided
by the government. By following this course, those positive aspects of “native blood” would then be
shared with the rest of civilization via assimilation.7 Parker, among other SAI leaders, provided living
examples of “Indian possibility in a White culture and context” (Nicholson 2011:72, see also Colwell-
Chanthaphonh 2009:142). Obviously, other options existed: full indigenous sovereignty and continued
guardianship were both potential paths which had their own adherents, yet these options did not fit
neatly within Morgan’s cultural evolution paradigm and the social Darwinism through which Parker
would come to view the world, as illustrated below (Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:142–143; Smithers
2013:275–276).

PARKER AFTER THE SAI

It was through these assimilationist lenses that Parker viewed not only society but also the very
academic disciplines he pursued: “Parker’s involvement in the SAI was his political effort to enhance
the image of American Indians, and archaeology was his professional effort…to help hold the ‘red race
in greater esteem’” (Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:144). However, while Parker continued to work in
archaeology and museum contexts after the dissolution of the SAI, he no longer played an active role
in the greater Pan-Indian Movement. Rather, Parker’s participation in the indigenous rights movement
was limited to specific projects. These included serving as chair of the Committee of One Hundred to
investigate conditions on reservations at the behest of the Secretary of the Interior, securing funding to
revitalize traditional Haudenosaunee arts during the Great Depression, and serving as president of the
New York Indian Welfare Society (respectively, Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2009:144; Hauptman 1979;
Porter 2001:136).
The contentious dissolution of the SAI during the early 1920s affected Parker greatly, and by
January 1922, Parker began espousing “a new, radical perspective on the whole project of Indian
assimilation” (Porter 2001:137). At that time, he spoke to the Albany Philosophical Society, stating,

What do we mean by melting? Is it only assimilation and not amalgamation?

If assimilation only is meant, then we may become a crazy-quilt nation full of
racial patches, some black, some white, some yellow, some brown….Each
[race] has hereditary tendencies that are quite fixed and are repeated in the
offspring. Students of Eugenics have much to say of the results of racial
blendings, especially those of different blood stocks….If we fail to heed the
plain, clear voice of experience as it points out the fatal results of
indiscriminate blood blending and inharmonious race contacts, we shall only
build a nation to be known for its glorious industrial achievements, and finally
for its blindness, its palsy, its leprosy and its death by fire upon a bed of scented
silks” [typescript, “America the Melting Pot of Nationalities,” January 18,
1922, Parker Papers, New York State Museum, from Hertzberg 1971:195–
196].
82 Northeast Anthropology No. 85/86, 2018

Porter discusses this speech further:

[Parker] described a future America without a single reference to any positive

Indian contribution. Dismissing the idea of an American melting pot, he
instead used eugenics to proselytize openly against both immigration and
“racial blendings” and to argue for “the preservation of racial type—that of the
Aryan white man”….Parker had gone from an advocacy of integration,
assimilation, and amalgamation for European immigrants and Native
Americans in 1916, to a general advocacy of exclusion and preservation of the
white race in 1922 [Porter 2001:137–138].

Parker would soon claim that “one must realize that there is no such being or race today in America
as ‘the Indian.’ To the contrary, there are between 300,000 and 340,000 persons of more or less Indian
blood” (Parker to M. A. Stanley, August 6, 1923, SAI Papers, from Porter 2001:139, also cited in
Hertzberg 1979:67). Porter claims that this “gradual disillusionment…was a sorry indicator of the
failure of the inclusive dream at the core of American rhetoric” (2001:91–92), yet this may have also
indicated a shift in Parker’s thinking at approximately the same time he became director of the
Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences in 1924.
Given Parker’s above-described activities on behalf of indigenous people, as well as his continued
academic pursuits, his statements on race purity seem incongruous from a modern perspective.
However, they did correlate with a growing practice within anthropology: that of ethnography and
archaeology being utilized as “rescue” sciences in which scientific methodology was used to record
traces of indigenous cultures before their irrevocable loss. Both these fields presented indigenous
cultures in essentialist terms: as more or less “pure” examples prior to inevitable loss, and in the case
of modern indigenous nations, prior to absorption by a colonial culture. This was exemplified by the
activities of the Bureau of American Ethnology, which utilized Morgan’s theories while conducting an
organized program of anthropological research (Kuper 1988:130) in addition to Parker’s own
ethnographic work among the Seneca (e.g., Parker 1909a, 1909b).
Hertzberg explains this thinking: “The more they departed from aboriginal characteristics and were
acculturated to the dominant sociey [sic], the less Indian they became” (Hertzberg 1979:69).
Furthermore, she explicitly links anthropological theories with debates surrounding the acculturation
of indigenous people: “There seems to be historically a consanguinity between Morgan’s evolutionary
conception and the melting pot on one hand and Boas’s [sic] view of culture and cultural pluralism on
the other” (Hertzberg 1979:71). Perhaps Parker’s experiences towards the end of his involvement with
the SAI influenced (or were indicative of) an internal debate between Morgan’s cultural evolution and
Boas’ pluralism, as Hertzberg claims:

The failure of the Society of American Indians was to Parker also the failure
of the Indian melting pot. His rejection of a melting pot ideology in the early
twenties appears to reflect not only this but also the polarization among
intellectuals at the time in which many persons, including social scientists,
eschewed the melting pot for a variety of Anglo-Americanization on the one
hand or cultural pluralism on the other. For a time, at any rate, Parker so lost
confidence in the promise of American life and in the possibility and efficacy
of the melting pot process, that he rejected it [Hertzberg 1979:70].

This appears to have been the case. Echoing his statements of racial purity a decade later, Parker
debated whether the Seneca were culturally “pure” as part of his ethnographic Seneca Arts Project of
Witt Arthur C. Parker and the Pan-Indian Movement 83

the 1930s, stating that “long had they been taught to imitate all the cultural patterns of the Europeans.
Native thinking, native art, native creative ability practically had been crushed out. With this had
perished the greater part of the spirit of the people” (Parker 1935a:11, from Hauptman 1979:288). The
implications of this were not merely a question of whether or not Seneca arts (and therefore culture)
evolved through acculturation but “a reflection of the fundamental myth at the heart of twentieth-
century salvage ethnography, because what was being saved—Seneca Indian culture—was actually
indestructible” (Porter 2001:204).
One can see Parker’s internal conflict between Morgan’s cultural evolution and Boas’ pluralism
here, at least how they apply to contemporary communities, and this may have been his attempt to relate
Boas’ theories with his own personal experiences. If so, it is odd that Parker utilized the concept of
eugenics as a bridge between Morgan’s cultural evolution (and its expression as the American “melting
pot”) and Boas’ pluralism, especially since Boas strongly rejected racial determinism and eugenics
(Boas 1931; see also Kuper 1988; Moore 2009).
Ultimately, it seems Morgan’s cultural evolution won out, as evidenced by Parker’s continued work
as archaeologist and museum curator throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Parker’s museums, as the
interface between archaeology and the public, “worked to elide the more complex truths of Indian-
white history and the messy reality of contemporary Indian accommodation and resistance to
amalgamation with Euro-Americans” and “concerned themselves with exhibiting or representing
Indians as ‘primitive’ archetypes and with charting their evolution through time toward civilization”
despite the growing acceptance within anthropology of acculturation as explanation of culture change
(Porter 2001:166). These institutions relied upon collections that Parker obtained, either through
excavations he led or through collections he purchased, to illustrate the history of human cultural
development according to Parker’s preferred explanations. Even his archaeological texts maintained a
cultural evolutionary framework, as represented by his treatise on The Great Algonkin Flint Mines. This
volume opens with a poetic description of the universality of the projectile point as a tool type utilized
by “mankind during its infancy” (Parker 1924:106).
Museums provided Parker with a space in which to approach race through Morgan’s concepts. Yet
the institution of the museum also addressed the other two topics of which Parker frequently wrote
during his time with the SAI: education and government policy. For Parker, museums served to educate
the public (including indigenous people) of their cultural history (Parker 1935b), and as museums were
funded by various levels of government (federal, state, city, town), they embodied positive government
policy. In an essay published in American Antiquity, Parker illustrated the relationship between
museums and archaeology, as museums were reliant upon ethical and educated archaeologists to
adequately explain the past (Parker 1939). It also helped that museums provided Parker with
opportunities to explore the liminal positions he negotiated as Native American and as archaeologist;
it is apparent that Parker was attracted to “museology” because “the museum, rather than the university,
was the institution that permitted him as assimilated Indian to be an intellectual, a professional, and
Indian authority in a way that did not cause either intellectual or emotional conflict” (Porter 2001:166).

CONCLUSION

Arthur C. Parker was a complicated individual, like anyone else. His dual heritage invited a host of
possibilities, but ones which Parker had to make for himself. This often involved negotiating identities:
using his Seneca heritage within Euro-American society when it was advantageous and downplaying it
when it was not. It is apparent that his relatively successful attempts doing so reinforced for him that
this practice was valid for all indigenous people. Parker, though genuinely concerned for the well-being
of Native Americans, advocated through both his political activities and his academic career that
everyone, including indigenous people, were best served by assimilation into the dominant culture.
84 Northeast Anthropology No. 85/86, 2018

Parker himself served as an ideal example. Obviously, this message was not well received by the
majority of his indigenous audience, and his method of sharing that message moved back to the realm
of the museum with its majority Euro-American audience after the dissolution of the SAI. There, his
views on race, education, and assimilation were expressed within the fields of archaeology and
ethnography, fields which fit neatly (at least for a time) within Morgan’s cultural evolution paradigm.
As illustrated, concepts of race and education played an important and complicated role. For Parker,
race and education combined into a goal of active assimilation, both on the part of indigenous people
and of the federal government. This ideal of assimilation played a key role in Parker’s involvement of
the SAI, the greater Pan-Indian Movement, and his belief that indigenous opposition to archaeology
was misguided and ignorant. Parker’s understanding of race, though deeply flawed from a modern
perspective (and even from the perspective of certain contemporary anthropologists, such as Boas), fit
within the wider cultural narrative of the time. While the change in Parker’s rhetoric from the 1910s to
the 1920s is surprising from a current indigenous rights perspective, as illustrated it could have been
successfully integrated within anthropological practice. Perhaps this says more about the foundations
of anthropology rather than Parker. His actions highlight the fact that anthropology itself was politicized
(sometimes to a great degree), even by those who styled themselves as allies of, and advocates for,
indigenous people.
Archaeologists and anthropologists, especially those new to their discipline, need to realize that the
early founders were complex humans, just like people today. Oftentimes, their complexities are
overlooked in the attempt to provide as much information as possible within those introductory courses.
This exclusion can prove unfortunate (even harmful) when combined with anthropology’s history of
interactions with indigenous peoples, as is the case with Parker and his legacy. We must understand
that the very foundations of our discipline worked to minimize the cultural specificities of those from
which we aimed to learn. As such, students and established researchers alike must critically engage
with this past if we are to truly ever develop culturally relevant anthropology.

Acknowledgments. This paper resulted from a graduate-level seminar, “Haudenosaunee History after 1815,” SUNY Buffalo
AMS 607, Fall 2017. As such, I would like to thank Dr. Donald Grinde for allowing me to audit his course. I would also like
to thank Dr. Grinde and students Julie O’Connor-Colvin, Marilyn Schindler, Matthew Syfrett, Carolyn Washington, and Bin
Xia for their feedback and discussion on an earlier draft of this paper. Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. April Beisaw for
her feedback. Finally, I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback, which greatly improved
the quality of this paper.

ENDNOTES

1. After publishing this book, Colwell-Chanthaphonh started publishing under “Colwell.” As such, the author will be referred
to as “Colwell” throughout the body of the text, though the book itself will be referenced under “Colwell-Chanthaphonh” to
reflect its bibliographic data.
2. However, Parker was awarded several honorary degrees, including an MS from the University of Rochester in 1922, a
doctorate of science from Union College in 1940, and a doctorate of humane laws from Keuka College in 1945 (Berg
2000:238).
3. Lewis Henry Morgan worked closely with Parker’s great uncle, Ely S. Parker, in the development of The League of the Ho-
dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois (Morgan 1975[1851]). As such, Parker would have heard of Morgan’s work from an early age.
Porter describes Morgan’s influence on Parker:
His gift to Parker was a conceptual framework that Parker referred to throughout his life. The attraction of Morgan’s
social evolutionary ideas for Parker was that they described human development….This schema allowed Parker to
think of assimilated Indians like himself as progressive, as people in advance of their contemporaries [Porter
2001:26].
4. These differences were regarding the development of a new religious movement within Southwest and Plains nations called
the “Native American Church” and the utilization of hallucinogenic peyote and mescal. Parker, who was Christian, opposed
the use of the medicine, stating that “God must be perceived by clear, clean moral vision and not by a crazed dream of a drug
eater’s brain” (Parker 1917:13). Parker did try the medicine at least once (Parker 1928:8).
5. Notably, many Haudenosaunee rejected—and continue to reject—American citizenship, as it compromises the sovereignty
Witt Arthur C. Parker and the Pan-Indian Movement 85

of Haudenosaunee nations, such as the Seneca (Porter 2001:5). Parker had even warned Seneca leader Walter Kennedy
regarding the effects of the Indian Citizenship Act, claiming that it was “all right for western allotted Indians, but we must see
that our people stand on their rights as an exception” (Rochester Times Union 1920, from Porter 2001:134). This stands in
remarkable contrast to Parker’s actions regarding other indigenous nations.
6. This incredible work and financial burden may also explain why Parker’s relationship with his first wife, Beulah, was
failing, despite oblique references to her “mental health.”
7. Parker even extolled this outcome in original poetry as presented within the American Indian Magazine (Taylor 2016:52–
57).

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