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While the election of Kamala Harris to vice president was historic, she isn’t the first person of color to hold the position. The first was actually Charles Curtis, who took office nearly a century ago.

Curtis was a member of the Kaw Nation who served as Herbert Hoover’s vice president from 1929 to 1933, and he has a complicated historical legacy.

Curtis supported women’s voting rights, child labor laws and the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. At the same time, he promoted assimilationist policies that harmed many Native Americans. One of his most significant impacts on U.S. policy is the Curtis Act of 1898, which weakened Native governments and helped break up Indigenous reservations.

HISTORY This Week Podcast: The Complicated Political Legacy of VP Charles Curtis

Growing Up in Kansas

Curtis was born in Topeka in 1860, one year before the Kansas Territory became the 34th state.

Around age three, his mother di