Charles Curtis: The First U.S. Vice President of Color

Did you know that Kamala Harris wasn’t the first U.S. Vice President of color? It’s true.

That honor goes to Charles Curtis who served as Herbert Hoover’s Vice President between 1929 and 1933.

Today, this decorated politician remains largely unknown to Americans, yet Curtis’ inspiring legacy endures. A Republican attorney from Kansas, he served in the House of Representatives (1893-1907) and the U.S. Senate (1907-1913, 1915-1929). Before becoming VP, Charles was the Senate Majority Leader.

Charles Curtis was widely lauded for his ability to work across the aisle.

That was no easy task with the volatile Democratic Party–which, at the time, was steeped in Jim Crow racism, segregation, and lynching (of Blacks and Republicans). Idaho Senator William Borah praised Curtis as “a great reconciler, a walking political encyclopedia and one of the best political poker players in America.”

Curtis became the first colored Vice President in U.S. history.

In 1929, he was elected alongside Hoover in a landslide victory, becoming the highest-ranking member of the Kaw Nation to serve in Washington, D.C. Growing up on a Kansas Indian reservation, Curtis worked in Congress two decades before the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act granted Indians full citizenship and voting rights.

Did you know that Herbert Hoover, the 31st U.S. President and Curtis’ boss, spent time on an Indian reservation? As a young boy, Hoover lived for several months with his Indian agent uncle on the Osage Nation reservation in Oklahoma—the only U.S. president to do so. There, he attended Indian Sunday School and developed a lasting appreciation for the American Indian way of life.

It’s no wonder that as president and vice president, Hoover and Curtis fought for greater American Indian rights.

Under the Hoover administration, funding increased for better reservation schools and hospitals. They helped pass the Leavitt Act to cancel Indian debt. They also encouraged Indian assimilation rather than segregation.

CHARLES CURTIS (1860-1936). The Kaw Indian who went from a Kansas reservation to the U.S. Capitol. Featured TWICE on the cover of Time magazine, Curtis remains the most successful and influential American Indian politician in U.S. history.

And he’s virtually unknown to Americans today.

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A PERSONAL NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY:

As a native Montanan, I grew up among several tribes in my state. Furthermore, in my work as a historian, I interact with several Northwest tribes, including the Nez Perce, Shoshone, Cayuse, Blackfeet, Umatilla, Crow and Chinook. Therefore, I am very sensitive to use of terminology to describe the tribes prior to European discovery of the continent.

After much discussion with my native friends, and with their blessing, I have settled on the term “American Indian” to describe this people in general. Many American Indians prefer the term “Indians,” especially out West. They do not appreciate how a small group of “eastern” tribes and white liberals have made the term so toxic.

In addition, the term “native American” is confusing. Many non-racial American Indians, including myself, are “native American.” The same applies to the word “indigenous.” Canada uses “First People” as a description, and while I think that’s better and more historically accurate, in the U.S., it has never found favor. Consequently, no single term is helpful nor historically accurate.

And so I, along with many other conscientious historians, have found “American Indian” to be our favored descriptive. I will add, in my work with individual tribes and deeper writing on the history of the West, I prefer to use the American Indian tribal names. For example, Nez Perce is a French designation (meaning “pierced nose”). The tribe’s proper name is Nimiipuu (pronounced “Nee Mee Poo”). The Blackfeet tribe is more properly named the Piegan. The Sioux (another French title) are the Lakota or Dakota. This honors my American Indian friends the most.

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SOURCES:

1. “Charles Curtis” (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Curtis
2. “Herbert Hoover: Only US President to Have Lived on Indian Reservation” by Alysa Landry, Indian Country Today website, 9/13/2018: https://indiancountrytoday.com/…/herbert-hoover-only-us….