Charles Curtis

Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was the 31st vice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 under President Herbert Hoover. He was the Senate majority leader from 1924 to 1929. An enrolled citizen of the Kaw Nation born in the Kansas Territory, Curtis was the first Native American to serve in the United States Congress, where he served in the United States House of Representatives and Senate before becoming Senate majority leader. Curtis also was the first and only Native American, and first multiracial person, to serve as vice president.

Curtis believed that Native Americans could benefit from mainstream education and assimilation. He entered political life when he was 32 years old and won several terms from his district in Topeka, Kansas, beginning in 1892 as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives. There, he sponsored and helped pass the Curtis Act of 1898, which extended the Dawes Act to the Five Civilized Tribes of the Indian Territory. Despite Curtis being unhappy with the final version, implementation of the Act completed the ending of tribal land titles in the Indian Territory, and prepared the larger territory to be admitted as the State of Oklahoma in 1907. The government tried to encourage Indians to accept individual citizenship and lands and to take up European-American culture.

Curtis was elected to the U.S. Senate first by the Kansas Legislature in 1906 and then by popular vote in 1914, 1920, and 1926. Curtis served one six-year term from 1907 to 1913, and then most of three terms from 1915 to 1929, when he was elected as vice president. He introduced the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Senate in 1921; it was not approved for ratification until 1972. Curtis marshaled support to be elected as Republican Whip from 1915 to 1924 and then as Senate majority leader from 1924 to 1929. In those positions, he was instrumental in managing legislation and in accomplishing Republican national goals. His long popularity and connections in Kansas and federal politics helped make Curtis a strong leader in the Senate.