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Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces and Chief Standing Bear of the Poncas appealed to the people of the United States, and finally succeeded in having their bands or the remnant of them returned to their own part of the country. Dull Knife was not successful in his plea, and the story of his flight is one of poignant interest.
The Ponca Indians were members of the large Siouan family. They had not always been a separate tribe. In the old days they and the Omahas and the Kansas and the Osages had lived together as Omahas, near the mouth of the Osage River in eastern Nebraska. Soon they divided, and held their clan names of Poncas, Omahas, Kansas and Osages. The Poncas and Omahas clung as allies.
Soon letters from white people and their societies began to pour into Washington, for the President and for the Congressmen. As a result, in the spring of 1880 the Senate of the United States sent a commission into the West, to find out if Standing Bear's stories were really true. They were true. Therefore the Poncas were told that they might go back to the Niobrara, if they wished. Some did so.
The horses owned by the Arickaras are, for the most part, of the wild stock of the prairies; some, however, had been obtained from the Poncas, Pawnees, and other tribes to the southwest, who had stolen them from the Spaniards in the course of horse-stealing expeditions into Mexican territories. These were to be known by being branded; a Spanish mode of marking horses not practiced by the Indians.
By a mistake this took in the Ponca reservation in Nebraska, and the Poncas were not told. The way they found out, was this: The Sioux began to come in and claim the land. "That is not right," said the Poncas. "You do not belong here. All this country is ours. Go back. We do not want you." So there was fighting, every little while, and the Poncas lost many warriors.
He stood high among the Poncas, because of his clan, the Wa-zha-zhe a clan that could cure rattle-snake bites and work other wonders. He strongly opposed giving up the Ponca home-land, upon which the tribe had lived for almost one hundred years, and which the United States had agreed, on paper, to give them in exchange for their hunting grounds. The other chiefs thought the same.
It did not seem to matter whether or not they liked the new home. And he called for soldiers, and all the Poncas were bundled out of their villages and taken to the hot country of the south. On the way women and children died. Standing Bear's daughter died. Just as Standing Bear and the other chiefs had tried to explain, the new country was not a good country for the Poncas.
The Poncas sheltered themselves behind a rude embankment, but their persevering enemy, gaining a good position, poured upon them a well-directed fire, which did fearful execution. The Ponca chief dispatched a herald, with the calumet, but he was immediately shot; a second herald experienced the same treatment.
Now I have no more use for the tomahawk. I want to lay it down forever." So he put it on the floor. "I lay it down. I have found a better way. I can now seek the ways of peace." He gave the tomahawk to Attorney Webster, "to keep in remembrance of the great victory." And a great victory it was, not only for the Poncas, but for all the Indians.
All the pieces were bad pieces. It was a hot country and a bare country, and not suited to the Poncas, who had good corn-fields and houses in their own country of the Niobrara. Besides, now the white man said that they were to have no pay for their Niobrara laud. He told the chiefs, according to Standing Bear: "If you do not accept what land is offered you here, I will leave you here alone.
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