Ponca people

“ We consider the treatment of the Ponca Indians as one of the most heart-sickening chapters in our national record of Indian wrongs, and we are determined to spare no effort to restore to them their stolen homes and rights, and to relieve the American people of the stigma of this terrible wrong. ”

“ About the first of October the Ponca chief came to Brother Miller, and informed him that they were about to start for their winter hunting ground, to hunt buffalo, elk and deer, to get robes and meat, and wished to have a few of our young men accompany them. He mentioned me, stating that I was good and kind to his people, mending bullet pouches, etc., for them. That same evening, after several of our young men had proposed to go with the Indians on their hunt, Bishop Miller said, calling me by name, "I would like you to go with them if you had not those fearful sores on your legs. ”

“ It will make a fitting conclusion to this sketch of the history of the Ponca tribe. The name of this agent was E. A. Howard. He calls the report “Journal of the March.”
“May 21st. Broke camp at seven o’clock and marched to Crayton, a distance of thirteen miles. Roads very heavy. The child that died yesterday was here buried by the Indians, they preferring to bury it than to have it buried by the white people.
“May 22d. Broke camp at seven o'clock and marched to Neligh, a distance of about twenty-five miles. ”

“ In extenuation of their cruelty the Spaniards afterwards described Ponca as a monster of depravity, with deformed limbs, a frightful countenance, and a sanguinary nature. The guilt of his death, said one of their countrymen, "rests more with the Indians than the Castilians; yet they were not the judges of Ponca!" They assumed, however, that any Indian who refused to reveal the hiding-place of treasures which they desired to possess was deserving of death, believing, as they did, that there was nothing of greater worth in the world than gold, or its equivalent in material wealth. ”

“ The public attention has frequently been called to the injustice and wrong which the Ponca tribe of Indians has suffered at the hands of the Government of the United States. This subject was first brought before Congress and the country by the Secretary of the Interior in his annual report for the year 1877, in which he said:
The case of the Poncas seems entitled to especial consideration at the hands of Congress. They have always been friendly to the whites. It is said, and, as far as I have been able to learn, truthfully, that no Ponca ever killed a white man. ”

“ You might lose your house. If you ever want a home come to me or my tribe. You shall never want as long as we have anything. All the tribe in the Indian Territory will soon know what you have done. While there is one Ponca alive you will never be without a friend." [1]
But freedom did not bring with it the restoration of a single right to their goods and lands. They were destitute, and without a home. The members of the Omaha Committee, with substantial aid from many other friends of the Indian, succeeded in gathering about one hundred of the refugee Poncas near their old reservation. ”

“ The agent reports:
"The Ponca Indians are in no way addicted to drinking or gambling, neither will they spend their money for whisky. They fully understand the use of money, and will use it to the very best possible advantage. I am fully of the opinion that if their annuity were paid to them in money, they would use it more judiciously for their comfort than it could possibly be used for them in the purchase of goods. The Poncas are the most peaceable and law-abiding of any of the tribes of Indians. ”

“ The king’s face fell, as did those of his councillors.
“Listen, O lord Macumazana, and all of you,” he said. “These Pongo are horrible wizards, a great and powerful people who live by themselves amidst the swamps and mix with none. If the Pongo catch Mazitu or folk of any other tribe, either they kill them or take them as prisoners to their own land where they enslave them, or sometimes sacrifice them to the devils they worship.”
“That is so,” broke in Babemba, “for when I was a lad I was a slave to the Pongo and doomed to be sacrificed to the White Devil. ”

“ The most miserable of all the official excuses put forward was based upon an incomprehensible blunder of the Government. It will be remembered that in 1858 the Poncas had their home guaranteed to them by solemn treaty. In 1868 a treaty was entered into with the Sioux, and, in loosely defining the bounds of their reservation as the Missouri River on the east and Nebraska on the south, the entire Ponca reservation, lying just north of the Nebraska line, was unwittingly included in that allotted to the Sioux. ”

“ Soon they divided, and held their clan names of Poncas, Omahas, Kansas and Osages.
The Poncas and Omahas clung as allies. Finally the Poncas remained by themselves, low down on the Niobrara River in northern Nebraska.
When the captains, Lewis and Clark, met some of them, the tribe had been cut by the small-pox to only some two hundred people. They never have been a big people. Their number today, about eight hundred and fifty, is as large as ever in their history. ”

“ With all his savage and terrific qualities, he was sensible of the power of female beauty, and capable of love. A war party of the Poncas had made a foray into the lands of the Omahas, and carried off a number of women and horses. The Blackbird was roused to fury, and took the field with all his braves, swearing to "eat up the Ponca nation"—the Indian threat of exterminating war. ”

“ The first of them denounces the wrong done to the Poncas and demands reparation. The second is in two parts: first, “that it is unbecoming in a free Government to allow its agents to slander, prosecute and imprison those whose only offense lies in befriending the victims of that Government's oppression.” This undoubtedly refers to the arrest of Mr. Tibbles last summer, on the Ponca reservation, by the Indian agent there. ”

“ Had we then proposed to Congress the return of the Poncas, and obtained authority and money for that purpose, and a new Indian war had ensued, which was not only possible, but, from the information we received from that quarter, appeared probable, the folly of such a step would have been more seriously and more generally condemned than all the wrongs done to the Poncas are now. ”

“ On December 28, ten days later, before the special commissioners could reasonably have reached the Indian Territory on their mission "to determine the question what justice and humanity require should be done by the Government of the United States," the Ponca chiefs in Washington were induced to sign away all their right and title to the old home on the Missouri. ”

“ They desire to visit Washington for the purpose of “convincing the government that it is their intention to remain where they are, and requesting the aid of the government in obtaining more teams, wagons, harness, and tools with which to work their land.” This petition is signed by all the chiefs and headmen of the Ponca tribe, and it would seem to show that the Poncas themselves understand their own interests better than they are understood by some of their sincere but ill-advised friends. ”

“ In the village of Quarequá was found much needed food, and some gold. So toilsome had been the march that eighteen days had passed since leaving Careta's town. And here Vasco Nuñez rested for the night, nursing his wounded, and cheering the sick and down-hearted. The guides whom Ponca had furnished, and who had proved of incalculable service to the explorers, were dismissed to their home with presents, and with hearts made glad by the destruction of Porque. So rolls round the planet inexorable nature, detested death giving hourly joy to universal life. ”

“ White Eagle, one of the Ponca chiefs, who had lost his wife and four children, and who was himself fast sinking under disease developed by the malarial Indian Territory, came to Washington and gave eloquent testimony in behalf of his tribe. The physicians there predicted that he had not three months to live, A bill was introdueed into Congress for restoring to the Poncas their old reservation in Dakota, and putting their houses, farms, etc., in the same good condition they were at the time of their removal. ”

“ To return the Poncas to these lands under such circumstances seemed a dangerous experiment, not only on their account, but also because the temper of the Sioux at that period appeared still very critical, and it was believed that the slightest irritation might lead to another outbreak of that tribe, the most powerful of all the Indian nations. ”

“ Moreover, if the petition does not express the real sentiments of the Poncas, and has been extorted from them by illegitimate means, the men so extorting it have made a great mistake in advising that they be permitted to go to Washington where they would be at perfect liberty to express their true sentiments not only before me but before others. ”

“ When the Ponca met these terrible warriors, they were afraid. They thought man and horse were one. They named it “Kawa” because they noticed the odor of the horse. Then they knew by this odor when the Padouca were coming. When a man smelled the horses, he would run to the camp and say, “The wind tells us the Kawa are coming.” Then the Ponca would make ready to defend themselves. The Ponca had many battles with the Comanches. They did not know how to use the animals, so they killed the horses as well as the men. Neither could they find out where the Padouca lived. ”

“ J. Owen Dorsey, who has made such prolonged and careful studies of the manners and myths of the tribes of the Siouan stock, is authority for the statement that the worst insult that one Ponca can give another is to say, “You are an eater of dog-dung;” and it is noticeable that the words of the expression are rarely used in the language of every-day life. ”

“ An attempt to right the wrongs of the Poncas in that way now, might involve consequences disastrous to an Indian population a hundred times as numerous as they are. Those who look only at the wrongs of the Poncas may not appreciate this consideration. But it is the duty of Government officers responsible for the management of Indian affairs at large to foresee such consequences, and to guard against the danger of choosing that method of undoing a wrong to some, which will be apt to bring greater disaster upon a hundred times larger number. ”

“ The public were told again and again that the land occupied by the Poncas in the Indian Territory was a malarious swamp upon which the Indians were rapidly perishing by disease; that they had already lost from one-fourth to one-half of their number; that they could not and would not gain a living there by agriculture and other labor; that the whole tribe would be in their graves before becoming acclimated or in any manner contented with their situation ”

“ The buck, on the other hand, was a rough-looking specimen of a Ponca.
“Speakin’ free an’ free, as between men an’ feller [42] sports,” observed Nomad, “I kain’t blame ther gal none fer runnin’ erway.”
“Me know um Pa-c-has-ka,” said Big Thunder calmly. “Him friend of Poncas, and him got good heart. Him no let squaw get away from Ponca brave.”
“What is your name?” asked the scout of the girl.
“Wah-coo-tah,” was the answer. ”

“ Having been a man of military training, he may have been rather inclined to summary methods; moreover it is probable that as the Ponca reserve had been ceded to the Sioux by the treaty of 1868, and as Congress had provided also that the Sioux should be removed to the Missouri River, and the Sioux were the same year to occupy that part of the country, the removal of the Poncas may have appeared to Mr. Kemble a necessity, in order to prevent a collision between them and the Sioux which would have been highly detrimental to both. ”

“ The Indian ring sought eagerly for some especially favored spot for the powerful chiefs, Spotted Tail and Red Cloud; something to serve up to them as a token of kindly regard.
There, at the southeast corner of the great reserve, was the land of the Poncas,—a prize for any Indian chief. And why not? One hundred and fifty houses, five hundred acres of growing crops,—just the place to teach the astute Spotted Tail, or Red Cloud, the warrior, the gentle arts of the white man.
The Poncas? Some eight hundred of them—what were they compared to the recovery of the Black Hills? The treaty? ”

“ The Ponkas still claim a share in it, and have a tradition about it, which is denied by La Flèche and Two Crows. The Ponkas say that the tree from which the pole was cut was first found by a Ponka of the Hisada gens, and that in the race which ensued a Ponka of the Makan gens was the first to reach the tree. The Omahas tell the following:
At the first there were no chiefs in the gentes, and the people did not prosper. ”

“ One Secretary of the Interior at the point of the bayonet had caused all the Poncas Indians to be driven from northern Nebraska down to Indian Territory, depriving them of lands to which they held government deeds. They were left in the new country for months without rations, and more than one third of them died. Among these was the son of Standing Bear. The old chief refused to have the boy buried in the strange country, and, gathering about thirty members of his tribe together, he started for their ancient hunting-grounds, intending to bury his boy where generations of the Poncas chiefs lay. ”