Standing Bear (Ponca)
Standing Bear ( 1829 - 1908 ) was a chief of the Ponca -Indianer in today's Nebraska . He became known through a Standing Bear v. Crook, which took place in Omaha on April 30, 1879 , and in which it was determined that Indians are also people who also enjoy the right to the basic rights of the American constitution. Standing Bear sued his detention in a military camp in Omaha, Nebraska. Susette La Flesche , an Omaha Indian, served him as an interpreter and became known through this court case. Standing Bear is a symbol of the oppression of the indigenous population in what is now Nebraska and the United States. Unexpectedly for all concerned, the court ruled the internment illegal and Standing Bear and his followers had to be released from internment by the US Army.
Life
Chief Standing Bear was born in 1829 in what was then the home of the Ponca Indians on Niobrara in what is now the US state of Nebraska. He grew up in the tensions of the Native Americans. In his youth there were often bloody conflicts with the arch enemies of the Ponca, the Sioux and the Pawnee . The Ponca lived as farmers and hunters. In summer they grew corn and vegetables and in winter they went buffalo hunting. But during his youth the Ponca had to concentrate more on their field work as a source of food, as the armed conflicts with their enemies made bison hunting more and more difficult. The Kansas-Nebraska Act increased the number of white settlers and the attacks of the Brulé and Oglala Sioux grew stronger. Because of this, they ceded much of their tribal territory to the federal government in an 1858 treaty with the United States, but reserved an area on Aowa Creek and Niobrara in what is now northeastern Nebraska.
But the contractually guaranteed aid from the United States did not materialize. The land was unsuitable for the traditional cultivation of corn and fruits, the attacks of the Sioux intensified and the US Army did not come to their aid. Because of this, the Ponca exchanged the reserved area in 1865 with another area of 96,000 acres (388 km² ) at the confluence of the Niobrara in the Missouri. This area was more fertile and easier to defend.
In 1868 the Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed between the Sioux Indians and the United States government. Back then, the Sioux were able to negotiate from a strong position, having just won the war for the Bozeman Trail in Montana against the US Army. With this contract, the Great Sioux Reservation came into being . But the drafters of the treaty simply overlooked the 1865 treaty with the Ponca. 96,000 acres of land had now been reserved twice. Officially, the area was given to the warring Brulé Sioux Indians.
During these turbulent times, Standing Bear was elected chief of the Ponca and married Zazette (Susette) Primeau. The couple had several children. On September 23, 1875, Standing Bear and other chiefs of the Ponca signed a document with the Indian agent AJ Carrier, which provided for their relocation to Indian territory in what is now Oklahoma . Standing Bear later claimed that he and the other chiefs signed because of a misunderstanding. They figured they would get a new area near Omaha in what is now Nebraska, rather than Oklahoma.
In 1877 the Indian agent E. C. Kemble received an order from the Ministry of the Interior to prepare a mission for the Ponca chiefs to the Indian territory. The mission was to find an area for the Ponca. On February 2, the Indian agent, Chief Standing Bear, and ten other Ponca leaders set out on the 500-mile road to Oklahoma. But the trip had been poorly prepared by the Indian agent. The group was actually supposed to meet the Osage chiefs , in whose area the Ponca should find a new home. Most of the Osage leaders were absent. As a result, nothing could be achieved. The Ponca also disapproved of the Oklahoma area. They wanted to go back to their homeland. But Kemble refused to return the group to Nebraska. The Ponca then set out on their own way back. After a hard journey in the bitter winter, they reached their old home on April 2, 1877. But Indian agent Kemble was faster and arrived before the Ponca on the Niobrara. He also had orders from Washington to relocate the Ponca to Oklahoma, if necessary by force. On April 16, 1877, a group of Ponca under the leadership of Standing Bear started the long journey to Oklahoma, accompanied by troops of the US Army. It was an arduous journey in bad weather and nine members of the group died, including the daughter of Standing Bear Prairie Flower. The Ponca were assigned an area in the Quapaw Reservation, but the land was not good for vegetable gardens and corn growing. The promised help and money did not materialize. The Ponca starved and about a third of the group died in the next two years, most of them from malaria . When Sitting Bear's son, Bear Shield, died in January 1879, the group only wanted to return to Nebraska to bury him. This was his last wish. On April 4, 1879, after another arduous journey, the Ponca group reached the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, but they had left their assigned reservation without permission from the federal government and the Home Office and were arrested by General George Crook and his forces in Omaha. Standing Bear and his group were interned in Fort Omaha. Conditions there were bad. Many of the group got sick. The Ponca horses were also too weak to allow a return to Oklahoma. The Omaha Daily Herald journalist Thomas Henry Tibbles learned of the fate of the Ponca group. It is not clear how he found out about this, but there are indications that General Crook gave him the information because the General himself was dissatisfied with the situation and he believed the internment was inhuman. He is said to have meant "I've been forced many times by orders from Washington to do most inhuman things in dealing with the Indians, but now I'm ordered to do a more cruel thing than ever before." I have been given inhuman orders from Washington many times, but now I am being ordered to act even more cruelly. On August 31, the general invited the journalist to the fort for a meeting with Standing Bear after the journalist had written articles about the fate of the Ponca. When asked why the group left Oklahoma, Standing Bear replied: "At last I had only one son left; then he sickened. When he was dying, he asked me to promise him one thing. He begged me to take him, when he was dead, back to our old burying ground by the Swift running Waters, the Niobrara. I promised. When he died, I, and those with me, put his body into a box and then in a wagon, and we started North . " In the end I only had one son. When he was dying, he asked me for a wish. He asked me to bury him at Niobrara when he was dead. When he died I put him in a coffin, put him on a cart, and me and my group drove north. General Crook, who had already expressed doubts in Washington about the American Indian policy on several occasions, tried, together with the journalist, to convince Washington of a more humane approach against the group. Crook even threatened to resign. They tried to convince the government that the group should not be forced to return to Oklahoma. Tipples began publishing articles in East Coast newspapers and had success. Several lawyers volunteered to assist the internees in a Washington case, including John L. Webster, an Omaha attorney and A. J. Poppleton, an attorney with the Union Pacific Railroad . The two attorneys petitioned the United States District Court in Omaha. The procedure was named 'Standing Bear v. Crook 'because the general officially detained the group in his garrison in Ohama.
The proceedings were opened on April 30, 1879 and lasted two days. This is where the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution came into play. It states: 'All persons who are born or naturalized in the United States and who are under their jurisdiction are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they are resident. No state may make or enforce laws that limit the privileges or freedoms of citizens of the United States, and no state may deprive anyone of the life, liberty, or property of any person or give anyone within its jurisdiction the same protection without due process fail the law. ' The position of the United States Government, represented by Attorney G. M. Lambertson, was that this article should not apply to Standing Bear and his Ponca since he is not a citizen of the United States. He argued that the Ponca did not lead a civilized life, were dependent on the government and therefore could not be considered citizens of the United States. They would also be indebted to their traditional tribal society and would not recognize the government of the United States. The lawyers argued that the Ponca were very civilized, farmed, and tried very hard to integrate into United States society. The additional article should also apply to the Ponca. The government would have no right to detain them against their will in Fort Omaha and deport them to Oklahoma in Indian territory. Granting the land to the Sioux would also have been illegal.
Chief Standing Bear made a speech in front of the court in which he said:
"That hand is not the color 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 color as yours. I am a man. God made us both. "
This hand is not the same color as yours. But when I stab her I feel pain. When you stab your hand, you feel pain. The blood that flows in my hand is the same color as the blood of your hand. I am a human. God created us both.
After a brief deliberation, the court ruled and Judge Elmer Dundy announced that the 14th Amendment did apply to the Ponca. The judge also ruled that the group's deportation to Oklahoma was illegal. This surprised many observers of the process. Standing Bear was released a few days later. The verdict was a decision with far-reaching consequences. The first time Indians were declared 'citizens' and Standing Bear and his group were able to inhabit the Niobrara Valley, their ancestral land.
After his release, Sitting Bear traveled for years in the eastern United States and stood up for the indigenous cause. In 1884 he returned to his home on the Niobrara, where he died in 1908.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 11, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Standing Bear, however, later claimed that there was a misunderstanding, as the Ponca language had no separate word for land in the Indian Territory. He further stated he reasonably thought he was agreeing to move to the Omaha Reservation.
- ^ [1] Adequate preparations had not been made for the visit to the Osages and many of the Osage chiefs were absent when the Ponca arrived.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 11, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Thomas Tibbles quotes Crook as saying he would resign his commission if he thought it would help keep the government from forcing the Ponca to return to Indian Territory. He also was quoted as saying he would appeal directly to Washington, except that the government typically issued orders that were the exact opposite of what he recommended.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. "First. That an Indian is a person with the meaning of the laws of the United States, and has therefore the right to sue out a writ of habeas corpus in a federal court and before a federal judge, in all cases where he may be confined, or in custody under color of authority of the United States, or where he is restrained of liberty in violation of the constitution or laws of the United States. "
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. "Third. That no rightful authority exists for removing by force any of the relators to the Indian Territory, as the respondent has been directed to do."
Web links
- Chief Standing Bear The trail ahead (English)
- www.nebraskastudies.org The trial of Standing Bear (English)
- US National Park Service Chief Standing Bear (English)
- Northern Plains Reservation Aid Biographies of Plains Indians Standing Bear - 1829-1908 (English)
- The Case of Standing Bear, Establishing Personhood under the Law (English)
literature
- Stephen Dando-Collins, Standing Bear Is a Person: The True Story of a Native American's Quest for Justice
- Thomas Henry Tibbles Standing Bear and the Ponca Chiefs
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Standing bear |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Chief of the Ponca Indians |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1829 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1908 |