10/09/2024
Standing Bear was a Ponca American Indian chief who successfully argued in U.S. District Court in 1879 in Omaha that Native Americans are “persons within the meaning of the law” and have the right of habeas corpus. His wife Susette Primeau was also a signatory on the 1879 writ that initiated the famous court case.
In 1875, the Ponca paramount chief White Eagle, Standing Bear, and other Ponca leaders met with US Indian Agent A. J. Carrier and signed a document allowing removal to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
White Eagle and other Ponca leaders later claimed that because of a mistranslation, he had understood that they were to move to the Omaha Reservation, not to the Indian Territory. In April 1877, some Ponca people went to live South to the Quapaw Reservation near present-day Peoria, Oklahoma. In May 1877, the US Army forced the removal of the rest of the tribe to go to the Quapaw Reservation, including Standing Bear and his family.
The Ponca arrived in Oklahoma too late to plant crops that year, and the government failed to provide them with the farming equipment it had promised as part of the deal (for a change…).
By spring 1878, nearly a third of the tribe had died due to starvation, malaria and related causes. Standing Bear’s eldest son, Bear Shield, was among the dead. Standing Bear had promised to bury him in the Niobrara River valley homeland, so he left to travel north, with 65 followers.
When they reached at the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, they were welcomed as relatives. Word of their arrival in Nebraska soon reached the government. Under orders from the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz, who also directed the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Brigadier General George Crook had the Ponca arrested for having left the reservation in Indian Territory.
Although the official orders were to return them immediately to Indian Territory, Crook was sympathetic to the Ponca and appalled to learn of the conditions they had left.
Crook told the Ponca story to Thomas Tibbles, an editor of the Omaha Daily Herald, who publicized it widely. The attorney John L. Webster offered his services pro bono and was joined by Andrew J. Poppleton, chief attorney of the Union Pacific Railroad.
They aided Standing Bear, who in April 1879 sued for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court in Omaha, Nebraska. Acting as interpreter for Standing Bear was Susette LaFlesche, an accomplished and educated, bilingual Omaha of mixed-race background. The case is called United States ex rel. Standing Bear v. Crook. General Crook was named as the formal defendant because he was holding the Ponca under color of law.
As the trial drew to a close, Judge Dundy announced that Chief Standing Bear would be allowed to make a speech in his own behalf. Raising his right hand, Standing Bear proceeded to speak. Among his words were, “That hand is not the color of yours, but if I prick it, the blood will flow, and I shall feel pain,” said Standing Bear. “The blood is of the same color as yours. God made me, and I am a man.” Judge Dundy stated that the federal government had failed to show a basis under law for the Poncas’ arrest and captivity.
It was a landmark case, recognizing that an American Indian is a “person” under the law and entitled to its rights and protection. “The right of expatriation is a natural, inherent and inalienable right and extends to the American Indian as well as to the more fortunate white race,” the judge concluded.
The Army immediately freed Standing Bear and his followers. The case gained the attention of the Hayes administration, which provided authority for Standing Bear and some of the tribe to return permanently to the Niobrara valley in Nebraska.
Between October 1879 and 1883, Standing Bear traveled in the eastern United States and Europe, speaking about Indian rights in forums sponsored by Indian advocate and former abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Susette (Bright Eyes) LaFlesche (by then married to Thomas Tibbles) and her brother Francis, who later became an ethnologist with the Smithsonian Institution, accompanied Standing Bear on the speaking tour. The LaFlesche siblings took turns acting as his translator. Tibbles also was part of the party. During his lecture tour, Standing Bear won the support of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and other prominent Americans.
Standing Bear died in 1908 and was buried on a hill overlooking the site of his birth. Today the federal government recognizes two tribes of the people: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma.
The 63-acre Standing Bear Park in Ponca City, Oklahoma was named in his honor. In addition to the annual pow-wow, it is the site of the Standing Bear Museum and Education Center, as well as a 22-foot-high bronze statue of the chief.
