Charles Curtis

Who was Charles Curtis?

Charles Curtis was a United States Representative, a longtime United States Senator from Kansas later chosen as Senate Majority Leader by his Republican colleagues, and the 31st Vice President of the United States. He was the first person with significant acknowledged Native American ancestry and the first person with significant acknowledged non-European ancestry to reach either of the two highest offices in the United States government's executive branch. He was enrolled in the Kaw tribe and his maternal ancestry was three-quarters Native American: Kaw, Osage and Potawatomi. His father was European-American. Curtis spent years of childhood living with his maternal grandparents on their Kaw reservation.

As an attorney, Curtis entered political life at the age of 32, winning multiple terms from his district in Topeka, Kansas, starting in 1892 as a Republican to the US House of Representatives. He was elected to the US Senate first by the Kansas Legislature, and then by popular vote, serving one six-year term from 1907 to 1913, and then most of three terms from 1915 to 1929.