Magazine Article Review: Chief Standing Bear and the Declaration of Independence

 Chief Standing Bear and the Declaration of Independence by David L Bristow, Nebraska State Historical Society, Nebraskaland Magazine, January/February 2026, pp 44-47.

Chief Standing Bear was the first Native American to sue the federal government and win.  The federal attorney argued that the laws of habeas corpus did not extend to standing bear, but Judge Elmer Dundy did not agree.  In siting his ruling the judge sited the Declaration of Independence.  The small group of Ponca Indians must be released because they had chosen to separate from the rest of the tribe which had been forced to Oklahoma.  They "have the inalienable right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  Once Americans embraced equality as a core value, then the decision was set.  The article quotes Sussette LaFlesche (Bright Eyes), Standing Bear's interpreter, "The people are the power which moves the magistrates who administer the laws."  She add, "They ask for liberty, and law is liberty."

Chief Standing Bear

Judge Elmer Dundy

Documentary Review: The First American Indian Doctor: Unladylike 2020, American Masters, PBS

 The First American Indian Doctor: Unladylike 2020, American Masters, PBS, June 2020.

A brief documentary that tells the story os Susan La Flesche Picotte and her becoming a medical doctor  She graduated in 1889 from Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania.  Rather than provide services in the East she decided to return to the reservation to serve her people.  She also took a roll in public health among her people, and educated about good health practices to avoid spreading disease.  She became the doctor for the Omaha reservation and the winebago reservation.  She and her husband lived just off the reservation.  She treated both native and white people.  She left a lantern lit at her house so people would know she was available--all hours of the day or night.  She did much more than doctoring.  She started a children's library, she taught Sunday school, she started a quilting circle for Omaha women and she translated legal documents for members of the tribe.  She advocated for a ban on alcohol.  She did not like federal land allotment, through which much of the Indian land was lost.  In 1913 she opened a privately funded hospital on the Omaha Indian Reservation.  However just a couple years after opening the hospital, bone cancer claimed her life.  The hospital continued to operate for 30 years.  It is now open as a health clinic and community center and museum.  It is now an historical landmark.

LaFlesche is quoted as saying, "I will always fight good and hard, even if I have to fight alone."

Cast: Narrator Julianna Margulies; Joe Starita, author book about LaFlesche; Renée Sans Sousi, Omaha Native educator; Dr. Yvette Roubideaux Sioux doctor Rosebud Reservation and head of Indian Health Services.

Jeffie Brewer Artist: Story Walk

I ran into this story walk at the Gene Leahy Mall.  The walk is around his Jeffie Brewer's artwork "Sneek" that is in the mall as part of the sculpture garden.

 

Native American Biography: John Joseph Mathews, Osage

 John Joseph Mathews was Osage.  This was the tribe that many members were murdered for the "head" rights, which gave them oil money.  He became a very important person among the Osage and was their spokesperson.  He was university educated, University of Oklahoma and Oxford, and served as a pilot in WWI.  He became a writer of books.  His first, Wah 'kon-tah: The Osage and the White Man's Road (1929) was a best seller.  His second book, Sundown (1934) would be his most significant.  It explored the effect of the oil boom on the Osage people and looked at the murder of the Osage by those wanting oil money.  This book is his only novel.  In the 1930s he served two terms on the Osage Nation Tribal Council.  He also served on the Oklahoma State Board of Education. He married and had two children by his first wife, however he walked away and had little contact with them.

He built an unusual home on his reservation property and called it The Blackjacks.  It was a two room sandstone home with a fireplace in the middle.  The home is now part of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and seasonally open to tours.  From here he continued writing.  His third book was Talking to the Moon (1945) about his life among the Osage.  He wrote a biography of a prominent oilman, Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E.W. Marland (1951).  He also published a book of stories from the Osage people based on his research with Osage elders, The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961). He remarried a widow and she had two children who he raised with his wife.  

In his later life he was working on a three volume autobiography.  One volume was publish posthumously, Twenty Thousand Mornings (2012), edited by Susan Kalter.  Kalter also edited a group of short stories which was also published, Old Three Toes and other Stories of Survival and Extinction (2015).  Mathews passed away in 1979 and at his request was buried in the garden of his home Blackjacks.  He was inducted posthumously into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame.  

Historical Markers at Creighton University: Before the University and the University

 

Native Americans before the University: Omaha, Ponca, Ioway and Oto.  The Pawnee were here originally before these later arriving tribes

History of Creighton University

Mountain Man: Old Bill Williams

William Sherley Williams, known as old Bill was a mountain man of some renown, but also served as an interpreter for the U.S. as he knew several languages.   He was born in 1787 in North Carolina.  His family moved to St. Louis.  When he was 17 he left home to be a preacher, and then became a mountain man/ fur trapper.  He also became a trail guide.  He married into the Osage nation, A-Ci'n-ga (Wind Blossom) and had two daughters by his wife.   He helped to translate the bible into Osage.  He also became a trail guide.  His daughters both married John Allen Mathews, first Mary Ann and when she died then Sara.  Old Bill Williams is the grandfather of John Joseph Mathews, an Osage writer.  He helped the blaze the Santa Fe Trail and traveled in the southwest.  He traveled with Albert Pike.  He trapped with Kit Carson along the Green River and he had friendships with the Utes.  He served as guide for the John C. Fremont fourth expedition which became mired in snow and eleven members died.  In 1849 he returned to the area with Dr. Benjamin Kern to look for survivors as well as papers that had been lost.  While on this mission he and Dr. Kern were killed by Ute Indians.  The town of Williams in Arizona is named for him and there is a statue there.  

Omaha Indians The Sacred Pole as per Fontenelle Park

The Cottonwood tree is the state tree of Omaha.  But before that designation it was the sacred pole, which represented the venerable man.