Ely Parker, a Seneca born on the Tonawanda Reservation at Indian Falls, New York, received a Western education and rose to prominence as a federal policy maker during the Reconstruction era, a moment of potential optimism for a reconfiguration of racial politics in the United States. He was an eloquent writer and orator, and although he based his arguments for Native American policy reform on historical evidence and firsthand observation, Parker perhaps misjudged the level to which legislators and other interested parties would be willing to reshape the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a notoriously corrupt and graft-ridden agency in the nineteenth century. Parker’s initial optimism and resolve to reform policy related to Native Americans gave way to frustration with the system and resentment toward public servants who stood in the way of reform. After resigning from his post as commissioner of Indian affairs in 1871, Parker moved back into private life. Still, his 1885 letter to the American historian and author Harriet Maxwell Converse about Indian policy reform shows his ongoing interest in Indian political issues and reform.