Forwarded by Marguerite Hampton.
One of the greatest events in human rights history occurred when a man stood alone, challenging the United States government and its constitution, demanding the right to be treated equal to any other. His name was Standing Bear, chief of the Ponca’s, and his heroic story rivals the likes of any other civil rights proponent in American history.
Ponca Chief, Standing Bear: The First Native American Civil Rights Activist Standing Bear (Ma-chu-nah-zah) was born in 1829 on his ancestral Ponca tribal land near the Niobrara river in Nebraska. The once nomadic Ponca’s had settled the land hundreds of years before—hunting and farming—living an unoffending life with an established record of peaceful relations with the United States.
In 1858, under pressure from the US government, the Ponca’s agreed to concede a great portion of their land, keeping a section along the Niobrara river. The treaty established boundaries between the Ponca and their traditional enemy, the Sioux. Just ten years later, in 1868, that treaty was nullified when the US government created the Fort Laramie Treaty, an agreement that pledged to the Plains nations protection, exclusive use of land—including some of the Ponca land—and aid for education and agriculture. The Sioux capitalized on the Ponca’s loss by repeatedly raiding the tribal communities until a quarter of the people were killed.
In 1877, after years of conflict with the Sioux and the massive loss of people and property, Congress passed legislation that required the Ponca to move from what was left of their inherited property, relocating and exiling them to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) as part of a consolidation process involving many different tribes from many different areas across the country. Chief Standing Bear sorrowfully professed, “We do not wish to sell this land, and we think that no man has a right to take it from us. Here we will live, and here we will die.”
Government officials said they would strike a deal with Standing Bear and his people: the chief and members of his band would be taken to Indian Territory and if they did not approve of their appointed reservation, they would not have to move. The 10 Ponca chiefs traveled by train (with much accommodations and an interpreter), surveyed the land, noted that the climate was too difficult to deal with and, because several of the chiefs were growing ill, Standing Bear determined that the land was uninhabitable for this people. He could not relocate his people to this harsh land just so they would die. The government officials retaliated by declaring that they did not need the Ponca’s consent to remove their people, and then punished the chiefs by leaving them stranded in Oklahoma in the middle of winter without water, money, food, shelter, or supplies. With only one blanket and one pair of moccasins each, they treaded by foot over 500 miles to their homeland.
Standing Bear says of his journey, “We started for home on foot. At night we slept in haystacks. We hardly lived until morning, it was so cold. We had nothing but our blankets. We took the ears of corn that had dried in the fields. We ate it raw. The soles of our moccasins were out. We were barefoot in the snow. We were nearly dead when we reached the Otoe reservation in Nebraska. It had been fifty days. We stayed there ten days to get strong and the Otoes gave each of us a pony. The agent for the Otoes said he had a telegram [from the US government] that the chiefs had run away, not to give us food or shelter or any help.”
When they finally arrived home, federal soldiers were forcing their people at bayonet point to prepare for the long arduous walk to Indian Territory. The military men confiscated and stole their tools, and seeds, plus personal and household items. On May 21, 1878 the journey from Nebraska to Oklahoma began with soldiers forming a line and driving the people forward like cattle. Soon diseases overtook the Ponca’s, picking off the elderly and young children one by one. Even Standing Bear’s only daughter, Prairie Flower, died of consumption on the torturous journey. The people marched on foot through inhospitable weather and terrain, following poor roads, drinking dirty water, and eating scants amounts of food.
Standing Bear and his people made it to Indian Territory, what it now Oklahoma, immediately begging to go home, desperately declaring that his people will die if they remain there. Government officials withdrew all support including money, agriculture, food, and provisions. Their cattle and most of their horses perished, and because they arrived too late in the summer, plants could not be grown. By the end of their first year, nearly 1/3 of the community died of starvation, pneumonia, malaria, and other diseases.
Standing Bear soon lost another child—his 12-year old son—who asked his father if he could be buried in his homeland of Nebraska. Standing Bear promised this would be so. After his sons passing, the grief-stricken father left with approximately 30 Ponca tribesmen on a journey that would take up to 10 weeks to complete. Soldiers learned of the bands excursion, labeling them renegades since they left the new reservation without permission. As soon as the reached Nebraska, the men were detained and then arrested by General George Crook on orders from the US Secretary of the Interior. The men were ordered to return to Oklahoma, refusing to do so until the child was properly buried. General Crook sympathized with Standing Bear, asking journalist Thomas Tibbles to conjure up some public sympathy for the Ponca’s who were battling the US government for permission to continue. Outrage for the bands injustice grew as more and more newspapers picked up the story of the anguished father and his plight. Two lawyers, without payment, agreed to represent Standing Bear in a court petition where it was asserted that the 14th Amendment should protect ALL people living in the United States—including Native Americans. (The Fourteenth Amendment states that no state shall deprive anyone of life, liberty or property without due process of law) It was the contention of Standing Bear and his attorneys that the Ponca ‘s were people protected under the US Constitution, that they committed no crime and consequently should not have been arrested.
Standing Bear faced quite a legal battle because at that time, there were those (both citizens and lawmakers) who believed that Indians do not qualify as “persons” or human beings and therefore were not covered by the 14th Amendment. Standing Bear, his attorneys and counsel for the government appeared before Judge Elmer Dundy who had to first determine whether the Ponca’s were humans, and then citizens, and thus eligible for protection and rights under American law.
The trial lasted two days and focused on Standing Bear’s life, loss, health and theft of property. He ended his court testimony with an eloquent plea of humanity saying, “My hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both.”
On April 30, 1879 Judge Dundy ruled that “…the question cannot be open to serious doubt. Webster describes a person as ‘an individual of the human race.’ This is comprehensive enough, it would seem, to include even an Indian.” It was at that very point when history changed and Native American were considered “people” under the United States law. He also ruled that the Ponca were held illegally and were free to go.
The government appealed the decision, but the Supreme Court ruled for Standing Bear again on June 5. The military and Bureau of Indian Affairs did not physically oppose Standing Bear and those living on Nebraska land, but they openly refused to extend the 14th Amendment to other Native people, including the remaining Ponca’s living in Oklahoma. In 1880, Rutherford B. Hayes granted Standing Bear and the Ponca people their Nebraska land, over 26,000 acres.
Standing Bear became a civil rights advocate for Native Americans, traveling across the country lecturing and educating before finally retiring to his home near the Niobrara river in Nebraska. Some of his people would eventually return to Nebraska, others would stay in Oklahoma. By 1890, the Sioux and Ponca made peace, with the Sioux giving back some of the Ponca’s homeland.
Standing Bear died along the river of his birth in 1908.
In 1962 Congress terminated the Nebraska Ponca’s tribe, in effect, denying their existence and federal recognition as a Native American tribal nation.
Standing Bear was honored in Oklahoma with a 20 foot statue just south of Ponca City, with an additional Standing Bear American Memorial Park and Trail added in 1996. The site honors him for his work as the first American Indian Civil Rights Leader. In recent years the two Ponca tribes have gathered together at pow-wows. The Ponca of Nebraska, Standing Bear’s people, still fight for the federal recognition that is so very much deserved.