After the Ponca were forced from Nebraska to Indian Territory, Standing Bear left to fulfill his dying son’s final request.

His arrest in 1879 triggered a federal case whose victory was historic — and far more complicated than the famous one-line version suggests.

THE ARREST CREATED A QUESTION BIGGER THAN STANDING BEAR

By the time soldiers took Standing Bear into custody in Nebraska in March 1879, the journey that would make him famous seemed to be over.

He had already done the thing federal officials did not want him to do.

He had left Indian Territory without permission and traveled north with relatives and other Ponca people toward the country from which the federal government had removed them less than two years earlier.

He was not returning at the head of an army.

He was not leading a military campaign.

He was not attempting to seize a fort or attack a settlement.

He was trying to go home.

Behind that journey was a promise to his dead son.

The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska’s history records that after the forced removal of the Ponca from their homeland in northeastern Nebraska, Standing Bear’s son died in Indian Territory.

Before his death, he asked his father to take him back north to be buried in the homeland of his ancestors.

Standing Bear decided to honor that wish.