Everything about Ponca totally explained
The
Ponca are a
Native American tribe. The Ponca are currently divided into two
federally recognized tribes: the
Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, which has about 1300 members and is headquartered in
Niobrara, Nebraska and the
Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, which is headquartered in
White Eagle, Oklahoma, a few miles south of
Ponca City.
At the time they first appeared in written history, the Ponca lived around the mouth of the
Niobrara River in northern
Nebraska. According to tradition they moved there from an area east of the
Mississippi just before
Columbus' arrival in the Americas. The Ponca appear on a 1701 map by
Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, who places them along the
Missouri. In 1789, fur trader
Juan Baptiste Munier was given an exclusive license to trade with the Ponca at the mouth of the Niobrara. He founded a trading post at the point where the Niobrara joins the Missouri and found about 800 Ponca residing there. Shortly after that, the tribe was hit by a devastating
smallpox epidemic and in 1804, when they were visited by the
Lewis and Clark Expedition there were only about 200 Ponca. Later in the
19th century, their number rose to about 700. Unlike most other
Plains Indians, the Ponca grew
maize and kept
vegetable gardens.
In 1858, the Ponca signed a treaty where they gave up parts of their land in return for protection and a permanent home on the Niobrara. In 1868, the lands of the Poncas were mistakenly included in the
Great Sioux Reservation. The Poncas became thus plagued with raiding Sioux, who claimed the land as their own.
When
Congress decided to remove several northern tribes to
Indian Territory (present-day
Oklahoma) in 1876, the Ponca were on the list. After inspecting the lands the US government offered for their new reservation and finding it unsuitable for
agriculture, the Ponca chiefs decided against a move to the Indian Territory. Hence, when governmental officials came in early 1877 to move the Ponca to their new land, the chiefs refused, citing their earlier treaty. Most of the tribe refused and had to be moved by force. In their new location, the Ponca struggled with
malaria, a shortage of food and the hot climate, and one in four died within the first year.
Chief
Standing Bear was among those who had most vehemently protested the tribe's removal. When his eldest son,
Bear Shield, lay on his death bed, Standing Bear promised to have him buried on the tribe's ancestral lands. In order to carry out his promise, Standing Bear left the reservation in Oklahoma and travelled back toward the Ponca homelands. He was then arrested for doing so without government permission. This led to a trial, in which it was established for the first time that native Americans are "persons within the meaning of the law" of the United States and that they've certain rights as a result.
In 1881, 26,236 acres (106 km²) of
Knox County, Nebraska were returned to the Ponca and about half of the tribe moved back north. The tribe continued to decline and in 1966, it was
officially terminated and its assets were dissolved. However, in the 1970s, efforts started to reinstate the tribe and on
October 31,
1990, the
Ponca Restoration Bill was signed into law. Currently, the Ponca are trying to rebuild a land base on their ancestral lands.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ponca'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://ponca.totallyexplained.com">Ponca Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
