Standing Bear Controversy

"In the spring of 1877 government officials forcibly removed members of the Ponca tribe from their homelands in the southeastern corner of Dakota territory, relocating them in the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. When Standing Bear, a Ponca chief, attempted to lead a group of his people home he was arrested, detained, and put on trial. In this book Valerie Sherer Mathes and Richard Lowitt examine how the national publicity surrounding the trial of Chief Standing Bear, as well as a speaking tour by the chief and others, brought the plight of his tribe, and of all Native Americans, to the attention of the general public, serving as a catalyst for the nineteenth-century Indian reform movement"--BOOK JACKET.