Bliss was born to Reverend Asher and Cassandra (Hooper) Bliss, on the
Cattaraugus Reservation, Erie County, New York of
Seneca Indians on December 28, 1838. His father was a minister to the Seneca Indians. He studied at
Hamilton College and
Yale College, then traveled in Maine,
New Brunswick, and
Nova Scotia (1860–61), investigating the condition of the Indian tribes in behalf of societies at Boston. Bliss was employed for some months as clerk in the
Indian Bureau, and subsequently in the post-office department at Washington in 1861. He was elected a member of the
American Antiquarian Society in 1861. Bliss took part in volunteer organizations for the defense of the capital, visited England the same year, and accompanied General
James Watson Webb as private secretary on his mission to
Brazil (1861–63). He was commissioner of the Government of the
Argentine Republic for the exploration of the Indian country called the Gran Chaco 1863 and edited at
Buenos Aires a monthly periodical,
The River Platte Magazine in 1864. Bliss was appointed by President
Francisco Solano López, as historiographer of
Paraguay and became secretary to Hon.
Charles Ames Washburn, U.S. minister to
Paraguay in 1866; he aided him in collecting materials for his
History of Paraguay (2 vols., 1871). He was imprisoned by the command of López on a charge of treason and conspiracy for his assassination September 10, 1868 and while imprisoned wrote, under duress, a deliberately falsified account of the U.S. legation's plan, retracted after his rescue by a U.S. Navy squadron December 10, 1868. Bliss was later appointed as translator to the
State Department at Washington, March, 1869 and served as editor of the
Washington Chronicle (1869–70).
President Grant appointed him secretary of legation in
Mexico (1870–74), and acting minister for several months, (1872–73). He afterward resided in New York, and was vice-president of the
American Philological Society and an editor of the
New York Herald from 1878 through 1881. Bliss died in New York, February 1, 1885. == Bibliography ==