Lyda Conley

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Eliza Burton "Lyda" Conley (* around 1869 ; † May 28, 1946 ) was an American lawyer. Among their ancestors were Europeans as well as Indians. She was the first woman to be admitted to the Kansas bar. In particular, through her campaign and her plea for the preservation of the Huron Cemetery in Kansas City , she became known nationwide. She survived several government trials and in 1909 was the first American Indian woman to appear before the United States Supreme Court .

Conley at Kansas City College of Law graduation (1902)

Life

Conley was the youngest of four daughters of Elizabeth Burton Zane Conley (1838-1879), who had Huronian ancestors among others, and Andrew Syrenus Conley (around 1830-1885), a white man of Northern Irish and English descent. The family's mixed origins were typical of the Hurons (also called Wyandot ) at the time. Her grandfather Isaac Zane was captured and adopted by the Indians as a child. He later married the chief daughter White Crane . In Ohio , he started the Zanesfield Church . In 1843, under pressure from the US government, the Hurons left Ohio and emigrated to Kansas .

Lyda grew up with her two older sisters Ida and Lena (the fourth daughter died as a child) on a farm with 64  acres (26  ha ) Land in Quindaro, Wyandotte County on. The children received a good education. Her mother Elizabeth had been granted the land in 1855 at the age of 17 when the former tribal area had been divided into individual ownership. The Missouri River later flooded the country and the adult daughters moved to Kansas City. Lyda and her sisters lived together in one house all their lives. Neither ever married.

After her death in 1946, Lyda Conley was buried near her relatives in the Wyandot Cemetery, which she had defended and cared for for decades. The gravestone ("Eliza Burton Conley") commemorates her appeal to the Supreme Court with an inscription. On the neighboring tombstone of her sister Lena ("Helena Conley", called Floating Voice ) it says: "Cursed be the villain who disturbs their graves".

Indian cemetery in Kansas

In 1855, most of the Wyandot accepted US citizenship. The land in Kansas was distributed individually. They retained some of their traditional structures including legal sovereignty over a central burial ground in Kansas City. This was increasingly enclosed by the growth of the city. In 1906 the non-US citizens of Oklahoma , Oklahoma , accepted a sale of the cemetery. In the vicinity were a Carnegie library , the Hotel Brund and the newly built Masonic temple . Lyda petitioned the sale in Kansas County Court. The sisters occupied the area and lived there temporarily in a log cabin and guarded the area marked off with no entry around the clock with weapons in hand.

The Kansas City public and newspapers followed closely, and Conley and her opponents were quoted as follows in the Kansas City Times on October 16, 1906 :

“Hundreds of our ancestors are buried in this cemetery. (...) Why shouldn't we be proud of our ancestors and protect their graves? We will, and woe to anyone who tries to steal a corpse. We are co-owners of this property and have the legal right to evict intruders, exactly the right that belongs to anyone who shoots a burglar in their home. "

- Miss Lyda Conley

"We reserve the right to obtain purchase offers."

- JB Durant, chairman of the government committee that tried to sell the property

The conflict, in particular also within India, caused a sensation nationwide. Among other things, the sisters won the support of local politicians, women's associations and other organizations. The responsible Indian commissioner HB Durante suggested using troops and justice against them. Lyda's lecture and pleading to the United States Supreme Court became known nationwide. Although she lost the trials in several instances, including before the Supreme Court, she gained further public support, including from Senator Charles Curtis . The argument went on. Lyda Conley was temporarily detained for shooting a policeman in the cemetery grounds. In 1913, the congress withdrew the legal sales license. Curtis, also partly of Indian descent, successfully introduced a legislative process to protect the cemetery under federal sovereignty in 1916. It was the first time in the USA that an Indian burial ground was considered worthy of protection.

In 1918, the federal government assured the Kansas City government that the future structural preservation, safety and lighting of the cemetery would be guaranteed.

Lyda Conley regularly looked after the cemetery even after it was placed under protection. In 1937 she chased some people from there. She was sentenced to either $ 10 or a 10-day prison term for disturbing the peace. Lyda Conley, already an old lady, proudly served her sentence with great public sympathy. In 1959, the Wyandot Nation of Kansas reconstituted itself again. They were recognized by the state as the legitimate tribe, sovereignty over the Huron cemetery remained controversial. In 1971 the cemetery was listed as a landmark on the National Register of Historic Places . The conflict over the use of the cemetery area between the Wyandot in Kansas and those in Oklahoma , which had been going on since 1800, was not fully resolved until 1998 through an agreement between the two tribes. An Indian casino was not built on the site.

filming

In 2008, Ben Kingsley announced that he would make a film of the life of Lyda Conley under the title Whispers Like Thunder . Kingsley wants to play Senator Charles Curtis in the play. The script was written by Trip Brook and Luis Moro .

literature

  • Vincent J. Lane Obituary ( October 4, 2014 memento on the Internet Archive ), Wyandot Herald , Jan 4, 1872, Kansas City, on the Kansas Public Schools website.
  • Kim Dayton: “'Trespassers, Beware!' Lyda Burton Conley and the Battle for Huron Place Cemetery. ”(No Entry, Linda Conley and the Battle for Huron Place Cemetery.) Yale Journal of Law and Feminism , Vol. 8: 1, 1996, pp. 1-30.
  • Henry Van Brunt: "Three Sisters Defense of Cemetery Lasts Nearly Forty Years: Recent Death of Miss Lyda Conley Recalls Long Series of Outbreaks and Defiance of Law by Women Who Built Shack on Indian Burial Ground in Heart of Kansas City, Kansas and Lived beside Graves of Ancestors, " Kansas City Times obituary , June 7, 1946, on the Wyandotte Nation of Kansas Web site.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Albert Henry Conley: "Genealogy of Conley Family" (c. 1922), accessed August 22, 2009.
  2. ^ "Descendant Of Wyandot Tribe Dies" ( Memento of May 9, 2001 in the Internet Archive ). Obituary for "Miss Helena (Lena) Gros Conley, 94," in: Kansas City, Kansan , September 16, 1958.
  3. ↑ a b c Henry Van Brunt: "Three Sisters' Defense of Cemetery Continued for Nearly Forty Years" (The almost forty years of continued struggle of three sisters at a cemetery) , Kansas City Times , June 7, 1946th
  4. ^ Entry for Lyda and Lena Conley on Find A Grave , accessed August 6, 2009.
  5. ^ A b "Huron Cemetery Chronology," Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma website.
  6. ↑ Kim Dayton: “Trespassers, Beware! Lyda Burton Conley and the Battle for Huron Place Cemetery. ” (Unauthorized entry prohibited, Linda Conley and the battle for the Huron Square cemetery.) In: Yale Journal of Law and Feminism , 1996, Women's Legal History, Stanford University. (PDF; 299 kB)
  7. ↑ "Ben Kingsley's SBK Announces slate" , Variety , November 17 of 2008.
  8. ↑ Wyandot Nation of Kansas (wyandot.org)
personal data
SURNAME Conley, Lyda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Conley, Eliza Burton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer of Native American descent
DATE OF BIRTH around 1869
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1946