How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [130]
In the 1870s Standing Bear was one of a number of chiefs of the Ponca Nation. The Poncas were a small, peaceful nation that occupied land—repeatedly reduced by treaty—between the Missouri and Niobrara Rivers, today a region along Nebraska’s northern border. Standing Bear raised livestock, grew vegetables, often wore Western farm clothes, and lived in a two-story home. Like many of the Poncas, he was a practicing Christian.2 The tribe had long coexisted amicably with nearby white settlers. Their only enemy was the Sioux, who lived to their north and vastly outnumbered them.
Chief Standing Bear (ca. 1834-1908) (photo credit 38.1)
Conflicting treaties
Standing Bear’s troubles began, unbeknownst to him, in 1868, when the Sioux signed a treaty with the federal government redefining the boundaries of their land. Neither the American negotiators, nor anyone in Washington, noticed that the treaty gave land to the Sioux that had belonged to the Poncas. The error provided the Sioux with a new excuse for a series of raids on the Poncas. The federal government, finally reacting to its error in 1877, did so in ways that revealed the complex web in which all Indian tribes were caught.
Standing Bear and his fellow Ponca leaders were called to a meeting with Commission on Indian Affairs inspector Edward Kemble and the government’s local Indian agent. Kemble had been directed by his superiors in Washington to tell the Poncas that “their interests have been carefully considered, and that it is very desirable that they should be established in a country where the circumstances are more favorable.”3 The more favorable country was in the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
Although resistant to giving up their ancestral land, the Ponca leaders ultimately agreed and went to look at available areas. Or: Although resistant to giving up their ancestral lands, the leaders ultimately agreed to look at available areas. Kemble, claiming the first version, later testified in a Senate investigation:
Most undoubtedly, they could not be removed without relinquishing their land there, and the next step after such relinquishment, or such agreement to relinquish, was to take a delegation to the Indian Territory to select some other home for them.
Standing Bear, claiming the second version, testified:
He told us he would take us to see this land down there first, and if we were suited we could come to Washington and tell the President so, and if not we could tell the President so.
One could be telling the truth and the other lying, or the truth could “lie” in language itself. None of the Ponca leaders spoke English, so a translator had been employed. Kemble testified, however, that he had hired the best man available:
Q: You had Charlie Le Claire as interpreter?
A: Yes, sir.…
Q: Was that before or after he had been driven out of the territory for fomenting trouble?
A: I had no information on that.…
Q: There did not seem to be any objection to him as interpreter?
A: He was the only one we could get.
Ten of the Ponca leaders, including Standing Bear, went with Kemble to look over the land being offered. When a Senate committee later questioned Kemble, words again proved to be problematic:
A: A great many wanted to go, but the instructions I had received … limited the number to ten.… Big Snake, Standing Bear’s brother, head soldier of the tribe, gave me a great deal of trouble. He wished to go.… But these ten men were insisted upon, and—
Q: Who insisted upon these ten men?
A: Myself and the agent.
Q: You picked out the men?