Ely S. Parker (1828-1895) was the first Native American commissioner of Indian affairs. During the Civil War, Parker, a close friend and colleague of General Ulysses S. Grant, served the Union cause and penned the final copy of the Confederate army's surrender terms at the Appomattox Courthouse in 1865.

Ely Samuel Parker (Ha-sa-no-an-da) was born in 1828 at Indian Falls on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation, near Akron, New York, the second of six children of a distinguished Seneca family. His mother was Elizabeth Johnson (Ga-ont-gwut-ywus, c. 1786-1862), a Seneca Indian and member of the wolf clan. His maternal grandfather, Jimmy Johnson (So-So-Ha'-Wa), was a grandson of the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake, one of the major "speakers" and authorities of the Longhouse Religion (Gai-wiio) of the Iroquois. Ely Parker's father, Seneca Chief William Parker (Jo-no-es-do-wa, c. 1793-1864), was a veteran of the War of 1812 and a grandson of Disappearing Smoke (also...