STANDING BEAR WAS ARRESTED FOR TRYING TO GO HOME – THEN HIS CASE FORCED A U.S. COURT TO DECIDE IF A NATIVE MAN WAS A “PERSON”

As a result, Standing Bear and his followers remained free.

That procedural ending mattered.

Had a higher court reversed Dundy, the case might have become a brief local victory followed by a national defeat.

Instead, the ruling stood.

Standing Bear could return to the homeland he had risked so much to reach.

But freedom presented another cruel reality.