Cato Sells
{{Short description|American government official}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Cato Sells
| image = SELLS, CATO. COMMR., BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, INTERIOR DEPARTMENT LCCN2016865119 (cropped).jpg
| alt = Portrait photograph of Cato Sells in 1914
| caption = Cato Sells, 1914
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1859|10|06}}.
| birth_place = Vinton, Iowa
| death_date = {{death date and age|1948|12|30|1859|10|06|mf=y}}
| death_place = Fort Worth, Texas
| nationality = American
| other_names =
| occupation =
| years_active =
| known_for = Namesake of the town of Sells, Arizona
| notable_works =
| office = 34th Commissioner of Indian Affairs
| president = Woodrow Wilson
| term_start = 1913
| term_end = 1921
| preceded = Robert G. Valentine
| succeeded = Charles H. Burke
}}
Cato Sells (October 6, 1859 – December 30, 1948) was a commissioner at the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1921.
Life and career
He was born in Vinton, Iowa, on October 6, 1859. He lost his father when he was young. He entered Cornell College in 1875. In 1878 he read law with Charles Alvord Bishop and in 1880 was admitted to Iowa State Bar Association and began practice at La Porte City, Iowa.
In 1889 he moved to Vinton, Iowa, and served on the Iowa State Central Committee. In 1887 he was chairman of the committee and was a delegate to the 1888 Democratic National Convention. He was a delegate to the 1892 Democratic National Convention as secretary. In 1892 was he was elected as a trustee of the Iowa State College of Agriculture. In 1893 he was president of the Iowa Democratic State Convention.
In 1894 he was appointed by Grover Cleveland as United States Attorney for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa.{{cite news |title=An Efficient District Attorney |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1894/12/23/archives/an-efficient-district-attorney.html |quote=Cato Sells, United States District Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa ... |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 23, 1894 |access-date=2011-12-15 }} In 1899 he was again president of the Iowa Democratic State Convention and in 1900 chairman of the Iowa delegation in the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City.{{cite news |title=Preferences of Delegates |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/07/03/102603364.pdf |quote=Iowa. Cato Sells will be Chairman of the delegation ... |newspaper=The New York Times |date=July 3, 1900 |access-date=2011-12-15 }}{{cite book |author= Benjamin F. Gue |author-link= Benjamin F. Gue |title=History of Iowa from the earliest times to the beginning of the twentieth century |publisher=The Century history company|year=1903 | url=https://archive.org/details/historyofiowafro04gueb |page=239}} {{Source attribution}}
He was a commissioner at the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1913 from 1921. In 1914 he banished books that taught anything concerning the Asian origins of Indigenous peoples of the Americas.{{cite news |title=Cato Sells Banishes Books That Teach Them They Are Mongolians. |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/12/28/100129533.pdf |quote=Cato Sells. United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs, has ruled that the American Indian is not a Mongolian. This is of interest to writers and composers of school books, for the Commissioner says he will eliminate from the list of books used in the Indian schools all that class the red man of this continent with the race to which the Chinese and other far Eastern people belong. ...|work=The New York Times |date=December 28, 1914 |access-date=2009-07-31 | format=PDF}}
He died October 30, 1948, and was buried in the Cleburne Memorial Cemetery in Cleburne, Texas.
Legacy
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Wikisource author}}
- {{commons category-inline|Cato Sells}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sells, Cato}}
Category:United States Bureau of Indian Affairs personnel
Category:Cornell College alumni
Category:People from Vinton, Iowa
Category:United States attorneys for the Northern District of Iowa
Category:American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law