Standing Bear is a Person: The True Story of a Native American's Quest for Justice

by Stephen Dando-Collins

In 1877, Standing Bear and his Indian people, the Ponca, were forcibly removed from their land in northern Nebraska. In defiance, Standing Bear sued in U.S. District Court for the right to return home. In a landmark case, the judge, for the first time in U.S. history, recognized Native American rights-acknowledging that "Standing Bear is a person"-and ruled in favor of Standing Bear. Standing Bear Is a Person is the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of that landmark 1879 court case, and the subsequent reverberations of the judge's ruling across nineteenth-century America. It is also a story filled with memorable characters typical of the Old West-the crusty and wise Indian chief, Standing Bear, the Army Indian-fighting general who became a strong Indian supporter, the crusading newspaper editor who championed Standing Bear's cause, and the "most beautiful Indian maiden of her time," Bright Eyes, who became Standing Bear's national spokesperson. At a time when America was obsessed with winning the West, no matter what, this is an intensely human story and a small victory for compassion. It is also the chronicle of an American Standing Bear won his case, but the court's decision that should have changed everything, in the end, changed very little for America's Indians.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, American History, Native American History

272 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2004

About the author

Stephen Dando-Collins is the multi-award-winning author of 48 books. British reviewer, noted playwright Robin Hawdon, says that Dando-Collins is "the modern age's foremost dramatizer of Greek and Roman history," while American reviewer bestselling military author Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman has described Dando-Collins as "a literary giant." Considered an authority on the legions of ancient Rome, Dando-Collins has written ancient and modern history, children's novels, scientific nonfiction, and biographies. The bulk of his works deal with military history, ranging from Greek, Persian and Roman times to American, British and Australian 19th century history and World I and Word War II.
Many of his books have been translated into foreign languages including Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, Russian, Albanian and Korean.
His most acclaimed book on the ancient military, 'LEGIONS OF ROME,' was the culmination of decades of research into Rome's imperial legions.
Dando-Collins aims to travel roads that others have not, unearthing new facts and opening new perspectives on often forgotten or overlooked people and aspects of history.
He has two new books in 2024: 'CAESAR VERSUS POMPEY: Determining Rome's Greatest General, Statesman & Nation-Builder,' (Turner, US), and 'THE BUNA SHOTS: The Amazing Story Behind Two Photographs that Changed the Course of World War Two,' (Australian Scholarly Publishing).

Reviews

[Stew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really wanted to WRITE this book rather than read it. I thought the story of Standing Bear and his quest for justice would make a great narrative. Dee Brown wrote a chapter on the case in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, but it was a story that needed fleshing out.
Gen. Crook, Thomas Tibbles and the Omaha Indian Bright Eyes are all fascinating characters on their own, and their stories converge in one of the most important legal cases in Native American history.
I was at first disappointed to find out that Stephen Dando-Collins beat me to wring the book. So I bought it to see if he did service to this fascinating story.
For those who don't know, Standing Bear was a Ponca Indian who along with his people were forced out of their homeland in northwest Nebraska and resettled under god-awful conditions in Indian Territory (Now Oklahoma). He and a small band of his followers escaped and made their way north in an effort to bury the remains of his son on their ancestral lands.
He was captured, but the crusading journalist Tibbles, took up his cause along with Gen. Crook, Bright Eyes and some powerful Nebraska attorneys. They all came together to help Standing Bear sue for his right to be considered a "person" rather than a ward of the state, in the eyes of the law.
I'm happy to say that Dando-Collins did an outstanding job of telling this story, portraying the characters and keeping the narrative flowing.
It made me proud to be a Nebraskan. Over and over again, sympathetic whites from the state rallied to the Ponca cause. I'm sure there were plenty in the 1870s and 1880s who had animosity for the Nebraska tribes. In fact, most Native Americans were kicked out of the state by the time this account took place. But many Omaha citizens saw the injustice here and did what they could to right a wrong.
A few years ago, the Republicans in the Nebraska legislature had the opportunity to put Standing Bear on the back of the state quarter. They sadly passed up the opportunity.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes a great narrative nonfiction.
Stew Magnuson
Author of "The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder."

[Mateo · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know, the history of relations between Indians and Americans (if that's the way to put it) is so fraught with horrible stories of cruelty, greed, mendacity, and stupidity that it feels almost like having brunch with Newt Gingrich. When you come across a genuinely heartwarming story in which white people--well, some white people--don't act like savages, and even act with compassion and moral bravery, you latch onto it. And pray James Cameron and Kevin Costner don't make a movie about it.

Not a bad book, but not a superlative one, either. There's a good story here, and Stephen Dando-Collins tells it fully; I had always thought the tale of Standing Bear and the Poncas more or less started and ended with Standing Bear's trial, but there's a good deal more to the story, furnishing Dando-Collins with some quite novelistic turns of events. Dando-Collins's narrative is occasionally bogged down by an excess of detail, like names that only appear once, that sort of thing, and the author has an irritating habit of conjecturing about events in the conditional tense--e.g., "the bride would have worn a simple dress," "General Crook would have been hungry," and so on. I realize that this is done to provide more color, to give a better sense of time and place, and Dando-Collins never gets carried away with his speculation (e.g., "by this time, Standing Bear would have come up with a functional design for a supersonic luxury passenger aircraft"). But, still, either we know something happened or we didn't, and the constant "would haves" feel oppressive. Nonetheless, Dando-Collins tells an interesting and important story with a certain panache.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I selected this popular history of an important 1879 lawsuit as the text for the Law and Literature class I teach for the Annual Judicial Conference in Washington State. It describes the shameful dealings of the United States with the Ponca Indian Tribe and one of its leaders, Standing Bear. It involves a writ of habeas corpus brought to test the dispossession of Standing Bear's clan from their ancestral land and the United States' defense to the writ that Standing Bear was not a "person" to whom the writ was available because he was a Native American. A chapter in Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is devoted to this story but it deserves a more extensive telling. Written for a popular audience and filling in gaps in the record with numerous suppositions, this is not a rigorously academic history. But it is a very good one in that it ignites the emotions of shame and anger in the white reader. Now let's see if the members of the class agree.

[Catherine Richmond]

This author has an unusual style. He uses "would have been" or "must have been" to fill in the blanks of this history.

[Laura Damioli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I took me over a year to read this book because it is so awful. The story is great and needs to be told, but the writing is just horrible. The author really struggles to stay on topic. It is very hard to follow who everyone is in the beginning. It gets better midway through. 2 stars only because of the story. Possibly the worst book I have ever read.

[Kai Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would love to have met Standing Bear, to have visited with him, and to have listened to I believe his sage wisdom....Kai Jensen

[Kaci · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dando-Collins tells his story well, however, as other reviewers have pointed out, much of his prose is based on unsubstantiated speculation which makes it hard to take anything the author writes as serious history. Many critical moments in his narrative have absolutely zero citations.

For example, Indian Agent E. A. Howard appears to be a victim (almost to the point of defamation) of the author's assumptions. Erroneously identified as "Inspector Howard" throughout the entire work, Dando-Collins repeatedly alludes to Howard's abrasive and inhumane nature, but does not provide any reference to the source material this description of his character comes from. To the contrary, the reading that I have done on the subject shows Agent Howard used kindness and diplomacy in his dealings with the Ponca, opposed the use of the military in the removal process, and was deeply concerned over the lack of resources he found for the Ponca when he arrived in Indian Territory and the fact that they had yet to be compensated for their lands in Nebraska/Dakota.

I wish there had been more history here and less story-telling.

[Chrystal Mars-Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a good read if you are interested in the journey of the native american toward his rights to protect his way of life in the early U.S. I found this book to be very good reading. it left me with mixed emotions about his quest and how a lawyer using the legal system in an effort to help, actually may have done more damage in retrospect. however, the good thing was that it put american indian citizenship on the map. highly recommend this book. old books often discolored early american history and slanted toward "white society". this book is truthful and shows how the two came together.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much conjecture! I have no doubt that the historical facts were presented accurately, but there were so many instances of "would have" that I put down the book with no intention of finishing many times. Tibble "would have" been exhausted; Bright Eyes "would have" felt shy. Nonetheless, I finished. I'm glad to know the story, but I'm even more glad to be done with this book.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still hard to believe these atrocities happened in the 'land of the free'. What a sad, shameful time.