Chief Standing Bear's legacy, civil rights leader of his time

“That hand is not the color of yours, but if I prick it, the blood will flow, and I shall feel pain. The blood is of the same color as yours. God made me, and I am a man."
Chief Standing Bear, Ponca

Chief Standing Bear stood in the U.S. Circuit Courtroom in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 2, 1879, before Judge Elmer S. Dundy. His courtroom appearance was the first time an Indian addressed a judge in a court of law. Standing Bear sought to prove that he, too, was a citizen of the U.S. and had rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

There, he offered an explanation for his journey from Indian Territory in Oklahoma back to his homelands in northeast Nebraska: Chief Standing Bear's son Bear Shield died in Oklahoma—his dying wish was to be buried on the land of his ancestors. To keep the promise Standing Bear made to his son, he and a few dozen followers set out for the Niobrara River in Nebraska in January 1879, without permission from the U.S. government. The 600-mile trek was brutal.

llustration of Standing Bear, from His History, undated.
Thomas Henry Tibbles papers (NMAI.AC.066), National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.

On March 4, the travelers arrived at the Omaha Reservation—they and their horses suffered from starvation and illness. Word of their journey leaked to Washington, D.C., and by March 27, the Ponca band found themselves detained at Fort Omaha under orders of General George Crook. Soon, Thomas Tribbles of the Omaha Daily Herald began publishing sympathetic articles to win support to free the Ponca. Omaha lawyers John Webster and Andrew Poppleton decided to represent Chief Standing Bear and his people, in turn. They filed a writ of habeas corpus (used to bring a detainee before the court to determine if his detention is lawful) against the U.S. government: United States, ex rel. Standing Bear, v. George Crook. 

Chief Spirit Native WCS

Judge Dundy's decision

Chief Standing Bear's trial took two days, but it took Dundy much longer to render a verdict. On May 12, 1879, Judge Dundy delivered his judgment to a packed courtroom. Prior to delivering his ruling, the judge explained to Chief Standing Bear, "So far as I am individually concerned, I think it not improper to say that, if the strongest possible sympathy could give the relators title to freedom, they would have been restored to liberty the moment the arguments in their behalf were closed. No examination or further thought would then have been necessary … but in a country where liberty is regulated by law, something more satisfactory and enduring … must furnish and constitute the rule and basis of judicial action" (Truer, 1999, p127).

Dundy went on to explain the Ponca were not "combatants," nor were they in violation of treaties as the Indian Appropriations Act (1871). The Act "declared that American Indians were no longer considered members of ‘sovereign nations’ and that the U.S. government could no longer establish treaties with them." The Act nullified the sovereignty Indian tribes had possessed since George Washington began making treaties with them as independent governments, and essentially, this meant they became wards of the state. However, the goal was to assimilate them into America's Western society. Dundy based his decision primarily on this Act. He recognized that Chief Standing Bear testified that once he and his followers left the Poncas in Oklahoma, they left their tribe.

What did this mean? It meant this band of travelers had forsworn any assistance from the U.S. government as Indians and should now be considered as citizens of the United States. Standing Bear and those with him were on their own in this unchartered territory. Dundy felt compelled to determine a broad ruling that would establish a precedent for other such cases:

"Every 'person' who comes within our jurisdiction, whether he be European, Asiatic, African, or 'native to the manor born,' must obey the laws of the United States...When a 'person' is charged, in a proper way, with the commission of crime, we do not inquire upon the trial in what country the accused was born, nor to what sovereign allegiance is due, nor to what race he belongs. The questions of guilt and innocence only form the subjects of inquiry. An Indian, then, especially from off his reservation, is amenable to the criminal laws of the United States, the same as all other persons."

Dundy laid out his findings in an eleven-page ruling. In short, he ruled that an Indian is a "person" with rights to file suit when detained by authorities or his liberties restrained. The judge explained that all citizens, including Indians, had the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," so if Standing Bear wanted to declare his expatriation from the Ponca—it was within his rights as long as he did so within the law and did not trespass on "forbidden ground." Finally, Dundy ruled General Crooks had no rightful authority to forcibly remove the Ponca, and they must be discharged (Truer, 128).