On this day in history, May 12, 1879, Chief Standing Bear became the First Indian With Civil Rights under the American Law. With this historical moment in time I would have thought for sure he would have a national day in his honor.
So how did he become the Native American to have civil rights in America? lets go back explore to find out more about the man they called Chief Standing Bear.
Contents
Early Life
Born by the name Maⁿchú-Naⁿzhíⁿ, Standing Bear was thought to be born around 1829. He was a member of the small Ponca Indians tribe that lived near the region of the Niobrara River.
With about 900 people in the tribe strong, they were closely related to the much larger Omaha tribe. The place where they used to live in now northeastern Nebraska.
Not much in known about Standing earlier life, But is said the inhertited the title of chief from his father,
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
In 1854, The Kansas–Nebraska Act was passed, Thus created and organized the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Signed by President Franklin Pierce, the was introduced with the goal of opening up new lands to development and facilitating the construction of a transcontinental railroad, but the Kansas–Nebraska Act is most notable for effectively revoking the Missouri Compromise ( a United States federal legislation that admitted Maine to have no slaves while simultaneously with leaving Missouri as a slave state) which sparked national tensions between the proslavery and antislavery advocates, over the legality of slavery in the states of Kansas.
This led to a series of violent civil armed confrontations in the United States from 1854 to 1861 which came from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery. This series of armed confrontations was called “Bleeding Kanas”
With the borders of Kansas newly created brought a flood of settlers looking to claim and settle on a piece of land. This then brought them to the Ponca homelands in present-day Nebraska. With all the new settlers, It increased pressure on all tribes in the area and increased fighting among them. In the case of the Ponca tribe, it resulted in more raids against them by the Brule and Oglala Tribes.
The Treaty Of 1858
In 1858 the Ponca People signed a treaty agreement with the United States which they gave up parts of their land in return for protection from hostile tribes and a permanent reservation home on the Niobrara.
The government at this time did reserve a much smaller area for the tribe to live on and moved to the area within one year after the signing of the treaty. The new area would become their new permanent home. In return for making the land cession, the tribe was to receive the following from the U.S. Government:
1. Annuities — that is, cash payments — for 30 years
2. Educational institutions for 10 years
3. A mill to grind grain and one to saw timber
4. An interpreter, a miller, a mill engineer, and a farmer
The Ponca gave up hunting for an agricultural. However, they faced many problems like the failure of the government to live up to its promises, drought, locust, and conflicts with the Sioux tribe. Even after all of this the Ponca kept their promises and never stole from nor attacked the white man.
In 1865 the Ponca signed another treaty that relocated their reservation to the east and south of its earlier location. The Ponca gave up most of its 1858 reserve for lands surrounding them south of the Niobrara River and the Ponca Creek.
They were also given islands in the Niobrara lying “in front” of the brand new reserve lands.
The reason why this treaty was made was for the tribe to return to the Ponca their old burial grounds and also to return their traditional agricultural lands. Another reason was to move away from the Sioux who were attacking from the West.
In 1868 the U.S. Government signed a treaty with the various bands of the Sioux Nation called the Fort Laramie Treaty,
The treaty created a large Sioux reservation that included most of South Dakota west of the Missouri River. The southern boundary of the South Dakota area also included parts of the land reserved for the Ponca tribe from the treaty of 1865. Consequently, about 96,000 acres of the tribe’s land (Most of their land) was given to the Sioux. The U.S. government illegally gave their land away.
It was said that the most likely reason this had happened was that the Fort Laramie Treaty commissioners (Generals Sherman, Harney, Terry, etc.) had simply forgotten about the agreements of the 1865 treaty made with the Ponca. Thus, two different tribes were granted the same land. That set the stage for the Ponca Tribe’s “Trail of Tears.”
Ponca”Trail Of Tears”
In 1875 a Ponca agent went and visited President Ulysses S. Grant to talk about moving the Ponca tribe to the Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma.
President Grant agreed to the move of the Ponca if they were willing. When the agent returned to Nebraska, Standing Bear and other members signed an agreement to move to the Indian Territory.
The agreement also allowed several Ponca chiefs to select a new reserve in Oklahoma.
In February 1877, Standing Bear and 10 other Ponca chiefs accompanied the Inspector Edward C. Kemble to the Indian Territory to view land
After viewing of lands on the Osage Reservation and the Kaw Reservation of Oklahoma, the chiefs were not fans of the land and then asked to return home without looking at the Quapaw Reservation.
The inspector then became angry at what he called the Ponca chiefs’ “insubordination”, and refused to take them home until they had viewed all the land the government provided. 8 of the chiefs then decided to return home on foot.
Kemble visited the Quapaw Reservation and selected it as their new home destination.
In April, Kemble headed to the Quapaw Reservation near present-day Peoria, Oklahoma, with the Ponca people who were willing to leave their homelands. Then in May, the rest of the tribe were forced to move, including Standing Bear and his family.
Nine people died on the journey, including Standing Bear’s daughter named Prairie Flower. She was died of consumption and was buried at Milford, Nebraska.
Arriving In Oklahoma
After arriving in Oklahoma in 1878, No food or shelter had been provided for them and it was too late in the season for them to plant. The Ponca tribe also didn’t get any of the farming equipment the government had promised them.
By spring, nearly a third of the tribe had died due to starvation, malaria and related causes. Standing Bear’s oldest son, Bear Shield, had died as well.
Standing Bear had promised to bury his son in his homeland at the Niobrara River valley. In the middle of winter, he and 30 others left to travel north to their home to bury his son.
Standing Bear v. Crook
They stopped to visit relatives at the Omaha reservation. On the orders of the Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz who was responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources at the time. Standing Bear and his followers were arrested for leaving their reservation by a man named Brigadier General George Crook.
Fortunately, General George Crook had proved sympathetic to the group’s situation after learning about the horrible conditions they had to endure.
The official orders were to immediately return them back to the Indian Territory, But because he took pity on them and he delayed their return so the Ponca could rest, regain their health, and seek legal help.
Crook’s suggested they that file a writ of habeas corpus (a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention) on April 8 for Standing Bear’s right to be released and to return home to his land along the Niobrara.
Crook later went to a man named Thomas Tibbles, who was an outspoken advocate of Native American rights. Tibbles was an editor of the Omaha Daily Herald at the time and publicized the Poncas’ story widely.
After catching wind of the story and attorney named John L. Webster offered his services for free and was later joined by a man named Andrew J. Poppleton to represent the Ponca people in court. Representing the native people at this time was dangerous and more than their personal liberty was at stake.
On May 1, 1879, In the crowded federal courthouse in Omaha, the United States ex rel. Standing Bear v. Crook began. The purpose of the trial was to
determine if Standing Bear and the group of Poncas had been lawfully arrested and detained.
During the trial, Webster and Poppleton argued under the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants citizenship as well as
equal protection and due process of the law to all persons born or naturalized in the United States applied to all Indians who had severed tribal relations and did not owe allegiance to any other form of
government.
The defense attorney, a man named Genio Madison Lambertson, argued that an “Indian was not a citizen of the United States and was not entitled to sue in its courts.”
The judge at the time was a man named Elmer Scipio Dundy. Judge Dundy was then left with the historical decision to decide whether Native Americans had the same rights of freedom as the rest of the nation under the Constitution.
After the legal proceedings had ended, in an unusual break from the procedure, Judge Dundy allowed Standing Bear to stand up and address the court. He spoke with the aid of an interpreter, Bright Eyes,
the daughter of the Omaha chief. Thus becoming the first Native American to testify in court. He said the following statement
“That 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 of the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both.”
Granted Citizenship
On May 12, 1879, Judge Elmer S. Dundy made history by ruling in favor of the Ponca people and declared that Standing Bear, an Indian, was is indeed a person. He later on stated:
“During the fifteen years in which I have been engaged in administering the laws of my country,” the opinion began, “I have never been called upon to hear or decide a case that appealed so strongly to my sympathy as the one now under consideration.”
The judge noted that the Habeas Corpus Act allowed federal courts to issue writs to “persons” or “parties,” and that nowhere did it describe them as “citizens.” “I must hold, then,” he continued, “that Indians, and consequently the relators, ar
‘persons,’ such as described by and included within the laws before quoted.”
Judge Dundy also ruled that General Crook had rightful authority in removing the group of Poncas from the reservation, but that his orders had been in error, for he was not instructed to convey them to the
nearest civil authority. In forcing the group to return to the Indian Territory, the government would deprive the Ponca people of their rights.
Reactions of the news ranged from fear to elation, but the most overjoyed were the group of Poncas who had accompanied Standing Bear in January and February.
They were then allowed to remain at the Omahas’ reservation and bury his son in his home lands.
After The Trial
Restitution was made to the Ponca tribe in 1881, but the geographical split remains. The tribe was eventually officially divided into two branches, one by the Niobrara River in Nebraska, the other in
Oklahoma. Making 2 homes for the Ponca tribes.
After a brief moving to the Indian Territory in 1889, Standing Bear returned to his home in Nebraska and built a farmhouse by the Niobrara.
He would remain there with his family until his death in 1908. He was
buried near the village of his ancestors and his son. Some of his descendants still reside there to this day.
Stand Bear Statue
Later in 1937, the state of Nebraska sent two statues to the U.S. Capitol. Each state is allowed to pick 2 historical figures to represent them in the National Statuary Hall, and Nebraska had chosen politician William Jennings Bryan and Arbor Day founder Julius Sterling Morton.
Neither Congress nor the Architect of the Capitol has the power to remove them; it must be done by the states that sent the statues.
In 2019, Nebraska lawmakers voted to replace both statues. Bryan was replaced by Chief Standing Bear and Morton was replaced by a statue of the famous author Willa Cather.
