Standing Bear
It is somewhat ironic that the Europeans who came to the Americas should have brought with them a philosophy
that would have been regarded as seditious and criminal if they had attempted to apply it at home. At
the same time that wealth and land in Europe was being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and the
protection of property rights was looming ever larger as a fundamental purpose of the rule of law, the
settlers in the New World asserted that the land belonged by right to those who would use it. The Indian
inhabitants of North America did not make intensive use of their land, and this was seen as ample justification
for taking it from them.
Federal policy toward the Indians varied over time. Under President Andrew Jackson, the Indians were moved
off their tribal homelands with the intention of concentrating all tribes in a single large tract set
aside for them, and their lands were turned over to white settlers. Gradually the policy shifted to establishing
the Indians in several small reservations, but these tracts were soon surrounded by whites who pressed
upon the Indians’ land on all sides. By the 1860s, the policy had shifted to setting aside large tracts
for Indian settlement, with the addition that the reservation Indians would be taught English and farming.
Policy shifted once again in the late 1870s, when it was decided that the Indians were to be given restricted
tracts to hold in private ownership.
Few people paid much attention to the plight of the Indians uprooted from their homelands and shunted
from place to place in accordance with a series of ill-conceived and contradictory federal policies. At
least, few paid attention until 1878, when Standing Bear (1819–1908), a chief of the Ponca tribe, left
the reservation in what is now the state of Oklahoma. His people had been forced to march to that land
in a long trek in which one-third of them perished. Carrying the body of his only son, who had just died
of the privations he had endured, Standing Bear and a few followers headed for their tribal burial grounds
in South Dakota. While passing through Nebraska, he was arrested and put on trial for leaving his reservation
without authorization. Unfortunately for federal Indian policy, members of the press were present to hear
his story and report it to the public.
This was the first time that the protest of an Indian was made widely known, and many felt revulsion for
what was clearly one small episode in a long history of abuse and victimization. Although the movement
has had its ups and downs, the demand for just treatment of Indian Americans that began with a public
outcry over the injustices inflicted on Standing Bear and his people has continued to the present day.
What promises did the "inspector" make to the Ponca chiefs and how did he honor them? Who personally
supported the Poncas’ protest at their treatment? What was President Rutherford Hayes’ role in this incident?
What actions did the army take? Why did Standing Bear leave his lands in Oklahoma? |
