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”

The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska’s history states that Congress moved to terminate the tribe in the early 1960s and that the process was complete by 1966.

The tribe says 442 Poncas were removed from the tribal rolls and that tribal holdings were dissolved.

The historical irony is difficult to miss.

In 1879, Standing Bear’s case had forced a federal court to reject the idea that a Ponca man could be placed outside a basic legal protection because he was Indian.

In the twentieth century, federal policy effectively attempted to erase the Northern Ponca’s formal tribal status.

The tribe did not disappear.