But what about his race? “He was just a very likeable person even early on when he was just a young boy in Topeka.”. "I think that being a mixed blooded person, in some ways being an ambassador between two worlds, did prepare him for American politics.". asked Rocca. Curtis was vice president … 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. "He lived with the Kaw people on the reservation," said Pauline Sharp, a member of the Kaw Nation. Abuse was rampant. Asked to be vice president by Herbert Hoover, Curtis joined the ticket in 1928 and the pair won in a landslide. By this time, there was already bad blood between Curtis and Hoover. Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's VP from 1929-1932, was the first person of color to be Vice President of the US. 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. After all he had achieved to reach the vice presidency, Curtis’ time in office was anticlimactic. Beginning in the 1970s, however, Hoover's reputation began to recover. ", How did that feel? or “No man or boy ever received better advice, it was the turning point in my life.”. Elected in 1928, Charles Curtis became the first, and only, Native American Vice President of the United States. But she won’t be the first person of color in the office. Could Indoor Vertical Farms Feed Livestock? Herbert Hoover won the nomination for president in 1928, despite objections from farmers. Curtis rose within the Republican Party that dominated Kansas and became a congressman, then senator, and eventually Senate majority leader. 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. Kansas Historical Society’s Kaw Mission site, Archaeologists Unearth Egyptian Queen's Tomb, 13-Foot 'Book of the Dead' Scroll, For the First Time in 200 Years, a New Blue Pigment Is Up for Sale, How Wolves Are Driving Down Mountain Lion Populations, Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be Largest Land Animal Ever, Inscription Offers Earliest Evidence of Christianity in Israel's Jezreel Valley, Stolen Copy of 'Salvator Mundi' Found Stashed in Naples Cupboard, How the Rugged F4F Wildcat Held the Line During World War II, Yes, Giant Technicolor Squirrels Actually Roam the Forests of Southern India. Rocca asked, "What would be lost if the house weren't there?". Meet Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation and Herbert Hoover’s vice president from 1928 to 1932. His detractors wove and promoted a myth labeling Hoover as heartless, inept and reactionary which unjustly prevails to … But for Native Americans, the legacy of the man known as "Indian Charley" is decidedly mixed. Curtis, Kansas’ beloved veteran senator, offered the perfect choice to balance out the Commerce Secretary. 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. 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. 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. 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. His Vice-President, Charles Curtis, was the first Native American to hold that office, being a … "I think he believed he was doing the right thing," said Henry. “The one thing that might have lightened the persecution of Curtis was that he was half white,” Brooks says. 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. “He’s proud of his heritage and yet he wants to be in a position where he can do something to support Native issues. Henry said, "She wanted the best for him, and the best for him was to go live with his White family. Curtis also supported Native American boarding schools, in which children were taken from their families and denied access to their own languages and cultures. "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. Son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the Presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an engineer, administrator, and humanitarian. ", "I think that's true," Henry replied. 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. 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. 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. But the United States has already elected its first minority vice president, Republican Charles Curtis, who had significant Native American ancestry. What was the public reaction to the nomination and election of a mixed-race/Native American person at this time? … “What do you do when you’re in a situation like Curtis?” Rhodes says. ", "That's a hard one," said Sharp. ", Correspondent Mo Rocca asked, "Had he gone with her, would we be talking about him today? But with the onset of the Great Depression, the ticket's bid for reelection went down in flames. He served under President Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933 as the first Native American vice president. 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. Charles Curtis, the first Native American vice president. He had the misfortune to inherit an economy and a faulty banking system which collapsed before it could be reformed. Grinde cites the schools as a factor in the population decline of Native Americans between 1870 and the 1930s. Cookie Policy Historian Jeanne Eder Rhodes, a retired professor at the University of Alaska and enrolled member of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, says land division under the Dawes and Curtis Acts ultimately “destroyed everything” for many Native American tribes. “They recognized that he was one-eighth Indian, but he had served the interests of white people for a long, long time,” Grinde says. In 1927, when Republican President Calvin Coolidge announced that he would not run for another term, he saw his chance to run for President the following year. Her parents, Nova and Don Cottrell, purchased the local landmark in 1993. When he died of a heart attack in 1936, he was still living in the capital. In 1928 Curtis, running with Herbert Hoover, was elected the 31st Vice President of the United States. Curtis grew up speaking Kanza and French before he learned English. In 1928, Charles Curtis -- a Native American lawmaker and member of the Kaw Nation -- was elected as President Herbert Hoover's vice president. Just two blocks away from the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka, you'll find a stately brick home with two domes. Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. 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 … Curtis, for those unfamiliar, served as vice president from 1929 to 1933, under President Herbert Hoover. 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. Herbert Hoover’s vice president, Charles Curtis, was American Indian Charles Curtis, from the Library of Congress. Give a Gift. As Curtis approached his late 60s, already having achieved so much, he had one more rung to climb on the political ladder. In fact, he may not have even survived.". I think he tried his best and I think he regretted, in the end, being assimilationist.”. Curtis … "It hadn't been well cared for. And, even if many Native American people were unhappy with the land allotment plans he had championed, many Kaw were proud of him. Keep up-to-date on: © 2021 Smithsonian Magazine. Pauline Sharp said, "We danced on our land in Kansas for the first time in 142 years. 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. Throughout his time in Congress, Curtis also consistently pushed for policies that many Native Americans today say were a disaster for their nations. He refused a salary, as he did throughout his entire life, never taking payment for public service. People got sick. 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. Watch CBS News anytime, anywhere with the our 24/7 digital news network. Dannenberg said, "I don't think many people around really knew much about him or realized how remarkable he was.". Postmaster General Walter F. Brown proved valuable to Hoover as the President's chief co… In 1933 Hoover welcomed Franklin D. Roosevelt, who defeated him, as the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. 15 presidents previously served as vice president. He also previously served as the Senate Majority Leader from 1924 to 1929. 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