People who had died did not return.

Families who had endured the removal did not forget it.

The community’s political relationship with the United States did not suddenly become equal.

The larger machinery of federal Indian policy continued.

This is one of the central paradoxes of Standing Bear’s story: he used American law successfully against American power, but the law could give him only a partial remedy for a much larger wrong.

Habeas corpus could release a body from custody.