The Story of Standing Bear (iii)

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. 

An Omaha court scheduled a trial because Editor Tibbles and others determined that what needed to be tested in a court of law was those words, the 14th Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, specifically the premise that Native Americans--our own first nations--were not citizens of the United States and therefore had no standing under the law, and that Washington could determine where they'd live. The 14th Amendment was one of three passed after the Civil War, to ensure African-Americans would be granted the rights and privileges of all Americans. 

But, what about Indians, what about the Ponca? No one had ever before asked. 

Simply stated, the government had always considered themselves to be parents and Indians to be children. Native Americans were afforded no rights. Under the reservations system, "Washington" determined where they would live, what they would eat, how they would live, where they could travel. Native Americans weren't citizens of this great land, never had been.

A team of Omaha lawyers determined to test that long-standing view using the habeus corpus argument, an order to demand the government bring the imprisoned out from lock and key. They wanted the government to prove that it had the right to order Standing Bear and his band back to "Warm Country."

The story swept up nation-wide attention. In Omaha, it was can't-miss, the courtroom crowds standing-room only. There was nothing sloppy or shoddy about the cases presented. Omaha's finest lawyers took the Ponca's side. When, in due time, they called Standing Bear himself to testify, the government's lawyer got to his feet. "Does the court think an Indian is a competent witness?" he asked.

Through an interpreter, Standing Bear answered questions, then rose and spoke to the whole room. "It seems as though I haven't a place in the world, no place to go, and no home to go to, but when I see your faces here, I think some of you are trying to help me, so that I can get a place sometime to live in, and when it comes my time to die, to die peacefully and happy."

What Standing Bear's lawyers argued is that in leaving the rest of the tribe, who'd stayed in Indian Country, his band had declared their independence. They were no longer part of that tribe, and that made their livelihood a matter of fundamental human liberty. In its summation, the government was patently clear: an Indian was neither a citizen nor a person; thus, Standing Bear could not file suit against anyone or anything, certainly not the government.

The judge had but one question to answer: was Standing Bear a person? That was the heart of the matter.

Before he left the chambers, he told the crowd someone had asked to address the court. Adorned in his bear necklace, a Thomas Jefferson medallion around his neck, moccasins on his feet, a blanket around him, Standing Bear walked to the front, accompanied by his daughter, Bright Eyes, who translated his address.  

He looked at his hand, held it out from his body for some time, then looked up. "That hand," he said, "is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be of the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both."

Then he told them a vision of his. He said he saw himself and his wife and his children at the bank of a river where the water is swift and rising. He attempts to get his family up and out of the way, but their narrow path is blocked by someone. "A man bars the passage," he said. "My wife and child and I must return and sink beneath the flood. We are weak and faint and sick. I cannot fight."

He faced the judge. "You are that man," he said. 

The courtroom was full of people, but no one spoke. Some say all that could be heard was the sound of muffled tears. People say the great Indian fighter, General Crook, sitting right up front, brought both hands up and covered his face.
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Tomorrow--the end of the story.