Our Native-American Vice President . . . a Black Slaveowner. . and the Election of 1876

Even though I’m not adding original posts right now, lively articles about history are all around us. Here are summaries of three, with links.

Charles Curtis: Republican, Native-American, and Vice President

Herbert Hoover’s vice president, Charles Curtis, was part-Native American, a member of the Kaw Tribe of Kansas. With Kamala Harris in the news, the Washington Post tells his interesting story (making the point that Harris will not be the first “person of color” to be an American vice president).

Curtis, whose mother was a Kaw member and whose father was white, grew up on the Kaw reservation in the late nineteenth century. As a teenager he moved sixty miles away to live with his paternal grandparents in Topeka, where he became something of a star horse jockey. When the tribe was forced to move to Oklahoma, Charles wanted to go, too, but his Kaw grandmother urged him to stay in Topeka and get an education. He did, and he was always grateful for her advice. He became an attorney and with his “winning personality,” a Kansas congressman, senator, and eventually vice president.

Here’s where the Post begins to go negative. Continue reading “Our Native-American Vice President . . . a Black Slaveowner. . and the Election of 1876”