A Century of Dishonor / A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

by Helen Hunt Jackson

"For nearly two weeks," the agent writes, "the work of salvage from the ever-threatening destruction occupied our whole available force night and day. We succeeded in carrying from the river bank to near half a mile inland the whole of the agency buildings, mechanics' houses, stabling, and sheds—more than twenty houses—nearly every panel of fencing. The Poncas worked well and long, often through the night; and the fact that the disaster did not cost us ten dollars of actual loss is to be attributed to their labor, continuous and persevering—working sometimes over the swiftly-flowing waters, terrible and turbid, on the edge of the newly-formed current but a few inches below them, and into which a fall would have been certain death, even for an Indian."

In one year after this disaster they had recovered themselves marvellously; built twenty new houses; owned over a hundred head of cattle and fifty wagons, and put three hundred acres of land under cultivation (about three acres to each male in the tribe). But this year was not to close without a disaster. First came a drought; then three visitations of locusts, one after the other, which so completely stripped the fields that "nothing was left but a few prematurely dry stalks and straw." One hundred young trees which had been set out—box-elder, soft maple, and others—withered and died.

In 1875 the locusts came again, destroyed the corn and oats, but left the wheat. Much of this crop, however, was lost, as there was only one reaping-machine on the agency, and it could not do all of the work. Many of the Indians saved a part of their crop by cutting it with large butcher-knives; but this was slow, and much of the wheat dried up and perished before it could be harvested by this tedious process.

This year was also marked by a flagrant instance of the helplessness of Indians in the courts. Two Poncas were waylaid by a party of Santees, one of the Poncas murdered, and the other seriously wounded. This occurred at the Yankton Agency, where both parties were visiting. When the case was brought up before the courts, a motion was made to quash the indictment for want of jurisdiction, and the judge was obliged to sustain the motion, there being under the present laws no jurisdiction whatever "over crimes committed by one Indian on the person or property of another Indian in the Indian country."

In 1876 the project of consolidating all the Indians in the United States upon a few reservations began to be discussed and urged. If this plan were carried out, it would be the destiny of the Poncas to go to the Indian Territory. It was very gratuitously assumed that, as they had been anxious to be allowed to remove to Nebraska and join the Omahas, they would be equally ready to remove to Indian Territory—a process of reasoning whose absurdity would be very plainly seen if it were attempted to apply it in the case of white men.

After a series of negotiations, protestations, delays, and bewilderments, the tribe at last gave what the United States Government chose to call a "consent" to the removal. The story of the influences, deceits, coercions brought to bear on these unfortunate creatures before this was brought about, is one of the most harrowing among the harrowing records of our dealings with the Indians. A party of chiefs were induced, in the first place, to go, in company with a United States inspector—Kemble by name—to the Indian Territory, to see whether the country would suit them. It was distinctly promised to them that, if it did not suit them, they should then be permitted to go to Washington and consult with the President as to some further plan for their establishment.

The story of this journey and of its results is best told in the words of one of the Ponca chiefs, Standing Bear. No official document, no other man's narrative—no, not if a second Homer should arise to sing it—could tell the story so well as he tells it:

"We lived on our land as long as we can remember. No one knows how long ago we came there. The land was owned by our tribe as far back as memory of men goes.

"We were living quietly on our farms. All of a sudden one white man came. We had no idea what for. This was the inspector. He came to our tribe with Rev. Mr. Hinman. These two, with the agent, James Lawrence, they made our trouble.

"They said the President told us to pack up—that we must move to the Indian Territory.