Chief Standing Bear Wins Civil Rights Case by Zina Abbott

 

During a recent trip to my local post office, my attention was immediately drawn to a current stamp offering featuring Chief Standing Bear. 

 

I recalled learning a bit about him when preparing a post for a different blog about the Dhegihan Siouan Language Roots, shared by the Osage, Quapaw, and Omaha tribes. The Ponca people, originally part of the Omaha tribe, broke away and established their territory along the  Niobrara River. To learn more about these tribes, please CLICK HERE

Chief Standing Bear

Chief Standing Bear (Ma-chú-nu-zhe) was the leader of a band of about 82 Ponca people who lived near the banks of the Niobrara River. Once the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed, farmers in the East expected to obtain the cheap land that the government was planning to put on offer. The indigenous tribes, including the Ponca, were being urged to sell out and remove themselves to "Indian Territory," in what is today Oklahoma.

A bit of history:

By 1789, when Juan Baptiste Munier acquired trading rights with the Ponca, they had villages along the Niobrara River near its mouth, and ranged as far east as present-day Ponca, Nebraska, at the mouth of Aowa Creek. A smallpox epidemic had reduced their numbers from approximately 800 to 100 at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1807.

When Standing Bear was born about 1829, the Ponca traditionally raised maize, vegetables, and fruit trees in these sites during the summer. They ranged westward for the winter bison hunt. The hunts brought them into frequent contact with their traditional enemies, the Brulé and Oglala Lakota. Sometimes the Ponca allied with their enemies to raid Pawnee and Omaha villages, but they also suffered raids by them.

In Standing Bear's childhood, Brulé raids forced the Ponca to rely more on agriculture and less on the winter bison hunt. In his adolescence, the tribe split into two villages: Húbtha? (Fish Smell) near the mouth of Ponca Creek; and Wái?-Xúde (Grey Blanket) on the northwest bank of the Niobrara. Standing Bear learned the ways of the men, how to hunt and fish, and prepared to take his place in the tribe.

In 1859, when Standing Bear was a young man, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 had encouraged a flood of European-American settlers, and the United States government pressured the Nebraska tribes to sell their land. At the same time, they were suffering raids from the North by the Brulé and Oglala. Because tribal land claims overlapped, the Omaha treaty of 1854 included a cession of a 70-mile-mile-wide strip of land between Aowa Creek and the Niobrara, which was also claimed by the Ponca.

By 1862, white settlers were quickly moving in and building the town of Niobrara where the Ponca summer corn fields had been. The Brulé raids from the north cut off the winter hunting grounds and forced the Ponca to abandon Húbtha. In 1858, under this pressure, the Ponca ceded much of their lands to the United States. They reserved the land between Ponca Creek and the Niobrara, approximately between present-day Butte and Lynch, Nebraska.

Ponca near Ponca City, Okla

The land to which the Ponca moved proved unsuitable, leading to continual famine. The tribe was still subject to raids by hostile tribes. The Ponca spent years attempting to hunt and raise crops and horses near their old village of Húbtha? and the town of Niobrara. The government failed to provide the mills, personnel, schools, and protection that it had promised by the 1858 treaty. It did not keep up with the increasing Ponca tribal enrollment in distribution of annuities and goods. Relatives sought annuity payments, people lost resources to sickness and starvation, and raids from hostile tribes were frequent.

In 1865 a new treaty allowed the Ponca to return to their traditional farming and burial grounds, in the much more fertile and secure area between the Niobrara and Ponca Creek east of the 1858 lands and up to the Missouri River. Unfortunately, as part of the 1858 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the government illegally gave the new Ponca reservation to the Santee Dakota as part of its negotiation to end Red Cloud's War. The government soon began to seek to remove the Ponca to Indian Territory.

The Ponca did not want to sell out. They did not like “the hot country” lands assigned to them in Indian Territory, and decided to return to their traditional homelands. The U.S. government decided differently. When the eight Ponca chiefs reached their homeland, the government representatives issues and official order on 12 April 1877 to force their removal. Federal troops were called in to enforce the removal orders, and by May 1877, the Ponca had begun their forced migration to "the hot country."

Ponca Trail of Tears

 

Between May 16 and July 9, 1877, is what became known as the Ponca Trail of Tears. The above map follows the trail taken by Chief Standing Bear when he led his tribe back to the new territory assigned for the Poncas. It is a visual representation of the long trail the Poncas had to travel by foot. Along the hundreds of miles, tribal members suffered various difficulties, including inclement weather. They lost over one hundred members of the tribe, including Standing Bear’s son, Bear Shield.

 

Bear Shield’s dying wish was to be buried among his ancestors back along the Niobrara River. After arriving to their allotment in Indian Territory, along with a small contingent, Standing Bear decided to return back to their homeland in order to bury his son. Upon arriving at the Omaha reservation—that tribe being allowed to retain most of their traditional territory—Standing Bear was arrested and judged. That began one of the most important cases for the legal status of Native American people. It set an example for the widespread application of Human Rights all over the country.

Standing Bear, wife and son

Chief Standing Bear successfully argued in the U.S. District Court in Omaha that Native Americans are "persons within the meaning of the law" and have the right of habeas corpus. He became the first Native American judicially granted civil rights under American law. His first wife, Zazette Primeau (Primo), daughter of Lone Chief (also known as Antoine Primeau), mother of Prairie Flower, who died during the journey to Indian Territory, and Bear Shield, who died shortly after arriving in Indian Territory, was also a signatory on the 1879 writ that initiated the famous court case.

Chief Standing Bear in National Statuary Hall of U.S. Capitol

In November of 2019, a statue of Chief Standing Bear was donated to the National Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol by the State of Nebraska. This was to commemorate the civil rights case Standing Bear v. Crook that recognized Native Americans as "persons within the meaning of the law" who have the right of habeas corpus.

There is also a Chief Standing Bear Memorial Bridge crossing the Niobrara River.

If you wish to learn more about legalities of this civil rights case, please CLICK HERE

 

I became interested in the tribes who settled along the Missouri River while writing my Old Timey Holiday Kitchen book, Bee Sting Cake by Brunhilde. Since “oma” is the German word for grandmother, and she would soon be traveling to the town of Omaha, she wanted to know who Ha was. I am happy to announce that, as of this month, this book is available in paperback as well as an ebook. For details, please CLICK HERE

 

Elise is my other book about a new immigrant from Germany. She also would travel past this region, but would do so by steamboat instead of train. This book is also now available in paperback as well as an ebook. For details, please CLICK HERE

 

 

 

 

Sources:

https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-honors-chief-standing-bear-statue-us-capitol/29120336

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_Bear

 

https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2019/11/chief-standing-bear-and-his-landmark-civil-rights-case/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Chief+Standing+Bear&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image