Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production of iHeartRadio.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production of iHeartRadio.

Hello and Happy Friday. I Am Tray c V. Wilson, and I'm Holly Frye. This week number one. Just so listeners know, we're having to record this completely over because of a technical problem. Hopefully just the behind the scenes, not the actual episodes. Those sounded okay, fingers crossed. But in addition to that, because of our travel schedule and also how we like to have two part episodes run the same week without other stuff in between them, we are recording this episode four weeks after the one that we recorded on Sarah Winnemucca, but they are only coming out like two weeks apart. Yeah, so it's gonna feel kind of like there's a theme for a period of time I'm in the podcast that in terms of when we actually recorded things farther apart. Also researching Sarah Winnemaca and the brief reference to the peace policy in that episode was definitely what led me to wanting to talk about Eli S. Parker, who one of the most complicated people I have needed to write an episode about. Yeah, because we've talked about a lot of Indigenous people in the nineteenth century who have, to a greater or lesser degree, felt like they and their people needed to assimilate with white culture in order to survive. And I am in no way judging any person who is a descendant of any of those people and is like living with the ramifications of those decisions. I feel like it's impossible to know which decisions would have been the best ones in those contents. But this is the person who has had the most powerful and the most power and the most influence in terms of the impact of those decisions. Right, Right, We've talked about a lot of people who have either themselves wanted to assimilate with white culture or they wanted their children or their people to assimilate, and their decisions were impacting themselves and their families and maybe also their specific tribe or nation. And then Eli S. Parker became the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and was making these policies related to all of the indigenous people in the United States, and you know, a lot of those decisions continuing to have impact and influence today.

Hello and Happy Friday. I Am Tray c V. Wilson, and I'm Holly Frye. This week number one. Just so listeners know, we're having to record this completely over because of a technical problem. Hopefully just the behind the scenes, not the actual episodes. Those sounded okay, fingers crossed. But in addition to that, because of our travel schedule and also how we like to have two part episodes run the same week without other stuff in between them, we are recording this episode four weeks after the one that we recorded on Sarah Winnemucca, but they are only coming out like two weeks apart. Yeah, so it's gonna feel kind of like there's a theme for a period of time I'm in the podcast that in terms of when we actually recorded things farther apart. Also researching Sarah Winnemaca and the brief reference to the peace policy in that episode was definitely what led me to wanting to talk about Eli S. Parker, who one of the most complicated people I have needed to write an episode about. Yeah, because we've talked about a lot of Indigenous people in the nineteenth century who have, to a greater or lesser degree, felt like they and their people needed to assimilate with white culture in order to survive. And I am in no way judging any person who is a descendant of any of those people and is like living with the ramifications of those decisions. I feel like it's impossible to know which decisions would have been the best ones in those contents. But this is the person who has had the most powerful and the most power and the most influence in terms of the impact of those decisions. Right, Right, We've talked about a lot of people who have either themselves wanted to assimilate with white culture or they wanted their children or their people to assimilate, and their decisions were impacting themselves and their families and maybe also their specific tribe or nation. And then Eli S. Parker became the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and was making these policies related to all of the indigenous people in the United States, and you know, a lot of those decisions continuing to have impact and influence today.

Yeah, we didn't refer back to it really in the episode, but we mentioned at the top of the episode that his mother had had this vision of him being this person who succeeded in both worlds, and you know, and I always wonder how much that was informing his decisions, whether consciously or subconsciously. Right, I'll star Wars it up and make it about how Anakin is told he's the chosen one and that ultimately like causes problems and whether or not this is a case of like all of that weight being put on him inherently would have probably impacted his decisions, whether he realized it or not.

Yeah, we didn't refer back to it really in the episode, but we mentioned at the top of the episode that his mother had had this vision of him being this person who succeeded in both worlds, and you know, and I always wonder how much that was informing his decisions, whether consciously or subconsciously. Right, I'll star Wars it up and make it about how Anakin is told he's the chosen one and that ultimately like causes problems and whether or not this is a case of like all of that weight being put on him inherently would have probably impacted his decisions, whether he realized it or not.

Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the episode, we talked about this documentary from nineteen ninety nine, which obviously now is twenty five years ago. What shush, no, it isn't it six years ago? So weird, and that it was shown on PBS. It was still available for me to watch on one of the PBS websites. But they talked to a number of indigenous historians and scholars leaders as part of that documentary, and a lot of them really talked about his personal ambition and how they felt like his personal ambition had led him to make decisions that were a betrayal of his people in his roots, and that reminded me a little bit of something we talked about with Sarah Winnemaca about how her people a big focus was everyone making decisions collaboratively, and so the fact that she went and did things on her own and made decisions on her own was really controversial. And I see some parallels there to Eli Parker clearly having a desire to, you know, based on his own writing and things that he said that himself, like having a desire to really excel at things like the English language and really wanting to get into positions of power, and then how that was viewed among the Seneca and among the Seneca who were being directly impacted by decisions that he was making, like with Ulysses Grant in Washington, and all of that. Truly a remarkable life though, Like even if we stopped before becoming Commissioner of any and Affairs, the process of like going through an education and becoming an engineer and doing the engineering work that he did, and then being the person who wrote out the surrender terms at Appomatics during the Civil War, all of those things are fascinating to me. He's actually been depicted in a couple of movies related to the Civil War. I don't remember the names of either of them, but in one of them he doesn't have any lines, and in the other one he has like one line, which really does not in any way encapsulate his very long relationship with Grant and how close the two of them were and how involved they were in one another's work.

Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the episode, we talked about this documentary from nineteen ninety nine, which obviously now is twenty five years ago. What shush, no, it isn't it six years ago? So weird, and that it was shown on PBS. It was still available for me to watch on one of the PBS websites. But they talked to a number of indigenous historians and scholars leaders as part of that documentary, and a lot of them really talked about his personal ambition and how they felt like his personal ambition had led him to make decisions that were a betrayal of his people in his roots, and that reminded me a little bit of something we talked about with Sarah Winnemaca about how her people a big focus was everyone making decisions collaboratively, and so the fact that she went and did things on her own and made decisions on her own was really controversial. And I see some parallels there to Eli Parker clearly having a desire to, you know, based on his own writing and things that he said that himself, like having a desire to really excel at things like the English language and really wanting to get into positions of power, and then how that was viewed among the Seneca and among the Seneca who were being directly impacted by decisions that he was making, like with Ulysses Grant in Washington, and all of that. Truly a remarkable life though, Like even if we stopped before becoming Commissioner of any and Affairs, the process of like going through an education and becoming an engineer and doing the engineering work that he did, and then being the person who wrote out the surrender terms at Appomatics during the Civil War, all of those things are fascinating to me. He's actually been depicted in a couple of movies related to the Civil War. I don't remember the names of either of them, but in one of them he doesn't have any lines, and in the other one he has like one line, which really does not in any way encapsulate his very long relationship with Grant and how close the two of them were and how involved they were in one another's work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yes, whatever's happening on your weekend, I hope that it is as great as it could possibly be. We will be back with a Saturday Classic tomorrow, and we will have a brand new episode on Monday. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

So, yes, whatever's happening on your weekend, I hope that it is as great as it could possibly be. We will be back with a Saturday Classic tomorrow, and we will have a brand new episode on Monday. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.