Standing Bear and the Ponca chiefs / Thomas Henry Tibbles ; edited with an introduction by Kay Graber. [electronic resource]

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tibbles, Thomas Henry, 1840-1928.

Contributor:

Graber, Kay, 1938-

Standardized Title:

Ponca chiefs

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Standing Bear, 1829?-1908--Trials, litigation, etc.

Standing Bear.

Ponca Indians--Legal status, laws, etc.

Ponca Indians.

Ponca Indians--Kings and rulers.

United States--Trials, litigation, etc.

United States.

Genre:

Trials, litigation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 143 p. )

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Standing Bear was a chieftain of the Ponca Indian tribe, which farmed and hunted peacefully along the Niobrara River in northeastern Nebraska. In 1878 the Poncas were forced by the federal government to move to Indian Territory. During the year they were driven out, 158 out of 730 died, including Standing Bear's young son, who had begged to be buried on the Niobrara. Early in 1879 the chief, accompanied by a small band, defied the federal government by returning to the ancestral home with the boy's body. At the end of ten weeks of walking through winter cold, they were arrested. However, General George Crook, touched by their "pitiable condition" turned for help to Thomas H. Tibbles, a crusading newspaperman on the Omaha Daily Herald, who rallied public support. Citing the Fourteenth Amendment, Standing Bear brought suit against the federal government. The resulting trial first established Indians as persons within the meaning of the law. At the end of his testimony, Standing Bear held out his hand to the judge and pleaded for recognition of his humanity: "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 of the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both."

Contents:

Dedication / Wendell Phillips

Introduction / Bright Eyes

I. Standing Bear's First Encounter with the Indian Ring

II. Standing Bear Finds a Friend in the Editor of a Western Paper

III. Flank Movement on the Indian Ring

IV. Mr. Hayt's Assault on Standing Bear, and the Reply the Old Chief Made

V. Omahas Come to Standing Bear's Aid

VI. Omahas Frightened at the Claims of the Commissioner

VII. Standing Bear's Religion

What Army Officers Think of Him

VIII. Standing Bear's Appeal to the Courts

IX. What the Attorneys Had to Say to the Courts

X. Standing Bear Released

Decision of Judge Elmer S. Dundy

XI. Order of Release

Standing Bear's Farewell Addresses

Indian Characteristics.

Notes:

Originally published: The Ponca chief. Boston : Lockwood, Brooks, 1880.

"Bison book".

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0-8032-9466-2

0-585-33678-4