Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice

(copy shamelessly plagiarized from goodreads.com)

In 1877, Chief Standing Bear’s Ponca Indian tribe was forcibly removed from their Nebraska homeland and marched to what was then known as Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), in what became the tribe’s own Trail of Tears. “I Am a Man” chronicles what happened when Standing Bear set off on a six-hundred-mile walk to return the body of his only son to their traditional burial ground. Along the way, it examines the complex relationship between the United States government and the small, peaceful tribe and the legal consequences of land swaps and broken treaties, while never losing sight of the heartbreaking journey the Ponca endured. It is a story of survival—of a people left for dead who arose from the ashes of injustice, disease, neglect, starvation, humiliation, and termination. On another level, it is a story of life and death, despair and fortitude, freedom and patriotism. A story of Christian kindness and bureaucratic evil. And it is a story of hope—of a people still among us today, painstakingly preserving a cultural identity that had sustained them for centuries before their encounter with Lewis and Clark in the fall of 1804.

Before it ends, Standing Bear’s long journey home also explores fundamental issues of citizenship, constitutional protection, cultural identity, and the nature of democracy—issues that continue to resonate loudly in twenty-first-century America. It is a story that questions whether native sovereignty, tribal-based societies, and cultural survival are compatible with American democracy. Standing Bear successfully used habeas corpus, the only liberty included in the original text of the Constitution, to gain access to a federal court and ultimately his freedom. This account aptly illuminates how the nation’s delicate system of checks and balances worked almost exactly as the Founding Fathers envisioned, a system arguably out of whack and under siege today.

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Terrie wanted to share with all of us some information she received from Hal France about two related topics—first, the ongoing effort to win national recognition of the Ponca “Trail of Tears” between Nebraska and Oklahoma; and, second, a conference in downtown Lincoln that has been inspired by and will support the effort to gain recognition for the Trail.

The best place to learn about the effort to have the Trail designated a National Historic Trail is this very rewarding website. Take the time to browse around…there’s much to learn. Also interesting is this Omaha World-Herald article that covered a group of Peru State students who took a two-day tour of the Trail.The article is as much about the trail and its history as it is about the class.

The conference in downtown Lincoln is sponsored by UNL’s Center for Great Plains Studies and is entitled “Standing Bear and the Trail Ahead.”  Its website offers a good, clear explanation of the title and the purpose of the conference. The conference takes place May 14 and 15 and you can find a list of the speakers and panelists as well as a schedule of events on the website. One of the speakers is Sherman Alexie; one of the panelists is Joe Starita.

For those of you who would prefer to read the schedule as a PDF, here it is.