Standing Bear is a person

A dispossessed 19th Century Indian chief succeeded in proving that his people were persons, in a triumph for American idealism, courage and peaceful response to injustice.  

The Ponca Indians were agrarian, peaceful, self-sufficient and taught their children to speak English. But in the eyes of the law, none of them were "persons".  Standing Bear is a Person is the true story of the one Ponca man who challenged the federal government on behalf of his people.

Explorers Lewis and Clark met the Poncas as early as 1804, and even then found them friendly and well-settled in permanent houses. When the Poncas were rounded up in 1877, they numbered less than 1,000 people in three settlements in Dakota territory (later within Nebraska's boundaries), clustered around a Bureau of Indian Affairs government outpost. The outpost was commanded by General George Crook, one of the army's most successful Indian fighters.

In June of 1876, at Montana's Little Big Horn River, George Armstrong Custer and 266 soldiers of the 7th Calvary were killed in battle against the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. The Poncas had absolutely no part in this bloodbath. In fact, for years the Poncas themselves had been victims of Sioux aggression, a dispute created by the federal government in the 1860s when it drafted conflicting legal descriptions into separate treaties with the two peoples.

Nevertheless, taking advantage of anti-Indian sentiment after Custer's last stand, and conveniently able to invoke “war” as justification, the federal government ignored the Constitution by confiscating the Poncas' property -- farm equipment, homes, school, church, workshops and household goods -- and forcing them to vacate their fertile Dakota homelands. Families were broken up if one spouse was not a Ponca. In the harshest of Great Plains' weather conditions --- tornadoes, floods, high winds and heat --- the Poncas were force-marched southward 600 miles to Indian Territory, located in what is now known as Oklahoma. Some said the real motive may have been the discovery of gold close by, or the pressure to make their fertile ground available to settlers.

As in any forced march, a very large percentage of the Poncas and their livestock died en route and in the ensuing months. Two years after resettlement, 600 of 700 horses were dead or stolen and 25 yoke of oxen were all dead. Of the Poncas themselves, 158 had died of 766 who began the march. Standing Bear lost his sister, his daughter and his English-speaking teenage son. The Poncas were left on undesirable land, without adequate farming equipment, livestock, money, or housing. The government gave them rations of one meal a day, or sometimes none at all.

Standing Bear was one of several Ponca chiefs. They had listened to government and military officials, negotiated in good faith, trusted officials until the lies became too obvious to ignore, and then resisted peacefully. Standing Bear led a small group of Poncas out of Indian Territory back to their Dakota lands. They avoided roads, towns and authorities by travelling northward through western Kansas.

The Poncas were almost to their homeland when they accepted sanctuary from a neighboring tribe, the Omahas. Hearing of this, the government in Washington set into motion another crackdown. The Secretary of the Interior called the Secretary of War, who demanded that the Army's commanding general, William T. Sherman, order the "arrest" of the Poncas at the Omaha reservation. Sherman handed the order on to General Phillip Sheridan, who handed it on to his former West Point classmate, General George Crook. In his years as a victorious Indian fighter, Crook had gained friends in the corridors of power. He also gained deep admiration for his Indian opponents, and considered them his equals. Standing Bear and the Poncas could not have found a better friend than General Crook.

A young woman, Bright Eyes, who had been friends with Standing Bear’s daughter since childhood, convinced her father, an Omaha chief, to join her in appealing to General Crook on the Poncas’ behalf. Crook noted he was only ordered to "arrest," not relocate, the Poncas. Before his superiors discovered the loophole, he quietly introduced Bright Eyes and her father to his friend, Thomas Henry Tibbles, newspaper editor, preacher and former anti-slavery activist.

Tibbles' network included churches, locally and back East, and two prominent local attorneys, John Lee Webster and Andrew Jackson Poppleton. Tibbles publicized the case across the country, generated popular sympathy for the Poncas, and convinced the two lawyers to take the case pro bono. They argued, in front of District Court Judge E.S. Dundy, Jr., that under the federal habeas corpus statute, Standing Bear was a person under the Constitution, entitled to be free.

At this point in the book, what had seemed another tragic but inevitable victory of brute force begins to unravel. One by one, individuals peacefully took their places to defeat the government through the power of reason and law, not the force of violence. Their courage, altruism and belief in peacefully seeking justice represent the quintessential stuff of American idealism, identity and faith in a system of justice.

Author Stephen Dando-Collins crafts strong descriptions of each protagonist and a compelling narrative based primarily on the words of the participants reported in official records and newspaper accounts. He has included actual transcripts of the trial testimony, a summary of the lawyers' arguments, and Judge Dundy's written opinion. These sources, along with black and white photographs of the key figures, bring the entire drama to life.

The passage of more than a hundred years helps demonstrate the significance of courage and peaceful response to injustice. In our day, when “war” is the justification for ignoring the Constitution's protections in ever increasing circumstances, and when the lives of unborn humans are unprotected simply because they are not considered “persons”, Standing Bear's story will strengthen and inspire anyone who seeks to right what is wrong by peaceful means.

Rebecca R. Messall is a lawyer in Denver, Colorado. She was president of the National Lawyers Association 2007-2008.