Standing Bear

Standing Bear (born 1829?, near present-day Niobrara, Nebraska, U.S.—died 1908, near Niobrara) was a Ponca chief who advocated for the rights of Native Americans in the United States and successfully argued in court that Native people are “persons” under the U.S. Constitution.

Ponca chief and forced relocation

The Ponca traditionally lived close to the place where the Niobrara and Missouri rivers meet in what is now northeastern Nebraska. Standing Bear was born in this region, which the Ponca called the land of Swift-Running Water. He was made a chief at a young age. In 1858, when Standing Bear was in his late 20s, representatives of the Ponca signed a treaty that relinquished most of their people’s land to the U.S. government. The Ponca retained 58,000 acres (about 23,500 hectares) between Ponca Creek and the Niobrara River, but the reduction in territory meant a change in their way of life, from hunting bison to farming. In another treaty, in 1865, Ponca representatives gave up tens of thousands more acres in order for the Ponca to gain access to their ancestral burial grounds. On the reservation lands granted to them in the 1865 treaty, the Ponca were under threat of attack by Brulé Sioux warriors.

In 1868 the U.S. government signed the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie with members of the peoples referred to as the Sioux, which added a large swath of land, including the Ponca’s remaining territory, to the Great Sioux Reservation. Sioux warriors raided the Ponca, resulting in the deaths of many people. In response to the conflict, the U.S. government aimed to move the Ponca to Indian Territory (now in Oklahoma). Escorted by U.S. agents, 10 Ponca chiefs, including Standing Bear, traveled by train and wagon to scout the area in February 1877. The chiefs fell ill and refused the land, in part because of the warmer climate. The government agents gave them an ultimatum: accept a tract of land there or find their own way back to Nebraska. Standing Bear and seven of the other chiefs marched back to Nebraska on foot, an exhausting trek of more than 500 miles (800 km).

A few months after the chiefs returned home, in April 1877 the U.S. Army arrived in the Ponca’s territory and began to move the people to Indian Territory by force. The soldiers stole their possessions and destroyed the villages and buildings that the several hundred Ponca had left behind. Nine Ponca, including Standing Bear’s daughter Prairie Flower, died during the journey. Upon their arrival in Indian Territory that summer, the Ponca had no food or shelter, and it was too late in the season to begin farming. As a result, Standing Bear’s 16-year-old son Bear Shield and many others died that winter, and fully one-third of the Ponca perished because of sickness and starvation after two years in the new territory.

Arrest and trial

Determined to honour his son’s wish to be buried in his homeland, Standing Bear set out in January 1879 with about 30 other Ponca to bury him in traditional burial grounds despite the federal relocation mandate. After two months Standing Bear and his convoy stopped at the reservation of their relatives the Omaha people to rest, but they were taken into custody by U.S. troops under Gen. George Crook as potential rebels. While imprisoned in Fort Omaha, Nebraska, Standing Bear was interviewed by journalist Thomas Henry Tibbles, and thus the Ponca story was published in the Omaha Daily Herald.

Through Tibbles, two prominent lawyers—John Webster and Andrew Poppleton—sued the federal government and applied for a writ of habeas corpus alongside Standing Bear. The court case United States, ex rel. Standing Bear v. George Crook was argued over two days in May 1879 before Judge Elmer S. Dundy. The government’s defense argued that Native people were not protected under the U.S. Constitution, citing the Dred Scott decision, while Standing Bear’s attorneys relied on the Fourteenth Amendment. Allowed to provide testimony himself, Standing Bear spoke before the court while Bright Eyes, the daughter of an Omaha chief, acted as an interpreter. Standing Bear asserted that he and all other Native people were people and therefore held rights under the Constitution. He is reported to have said:

My hand is not the colour 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 colour as yours. The same God made us both. I am a man.

Owing in part to Standing Bear’s eloquence, Dundy ruled in his favour on May 12, 1879. His opinion stated that “an Indian is a ‘person’ within the meaning of the laws of the United States” and that “the Indians…have the inalienable right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ so long as they obey the laws and do not trespass on forbidden ground.” Although the U.S. government appealed the decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The Ponca were released, and Standing Bear was able to proceed with the burial of his son. Restitution equaling 26,000 acres (about 10,500 hectares) of the Ponca’s native land was provided to them in 1881.

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On May 13, 1879, just a day after Dundy’s ruling, Standing Bear’s brother Big Snake departed Indian Territory to trade with the Cheyenne. He was arrested under the pretense that the decision in United States, ex rel. Standing Bear v. George Crook pertained only to Standing Bear and his cadre of travelers on the Omaha reservation. Big Snake was arrested again in October 1879 under orders from an Indian Affairs officer. He resisted and was fatally shot in the head.

Later life and legacy

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Tibbles arranged for Standing Bear to lecture in several cities in the eastern U.S., spreading the story of his people and advocating for Native American rights, alongside Tibbles and with Bright Eyes as his interpreter. (Tibbles and Bright Eyes would later marry.) After his travels, Standing Bear built a farmhouse on his ancestral homeland near the Niobrara River in Nebraska, where he lived until his death in 1908. He was buried near his ancestors’ village, where his family remains.

Chief Standing Bear Park in Ponca City, Oklahoma, opened in 1996, complete with a bronze statue of Standing Bear measuring 22 feet (6.7 metres) tall. The park’s Standing Bear Museum and Education Center opened in 2007. A bridge spanning the Missouri River near Niobrara was opened in 1998 as the Chief Standing Bear Memorial Bridge. The Chief Standing Bear Trail roughly follows part of the route the Ponca people took in 1877 to Indian Territory, allowing hikers and cyclists to travel from Beatrice, Nebraska, to Marysville, Kansas. The trail was transferred to the Ponca in May 2017. A statue of the chief standing 9 feet (2.7 metres) tall was unveiled in Lincoln, Nebraska, in October 2017 to commemorate his achievements. In 2019 the state of Nebraska provided a statue of Standing Bear to the U.S. Capitol to be one of two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection that represent the state. A U.S. postage stamp featuring Standing Bear debuted in 2023.