Ponca

The Ponca are a Native American tribe originally living around the mouth of the [[Niobrara River],] Nebraska, but was later removed to the Indian Territory.

Their first mention in written record came when they were visited by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804. Unlike most other Plains Indians, the Poncas grew corn and kept vegetable gardens. In 1858 the Poncas 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 included in the Sioux Reservation by mistake. The Poncas became thus plagued with raiding Sioux who claimed the land as their own. When Congress in 1876 decided to exile several of the northern tribes to Indian Territory, the Poncas were on the list.

When governmental officals came in early 1877 to move the Poncas to their new land, the chiefs refused, citing their their earlier treaty. Most of the tribe refused and had to be moved by force. The Ponca did not tackle malaria and the new climate very well, and one in four were dead within the first year.

Chief Standing Bear was among those who had most vehemently protested the tribe's removal. When his last son lay on his death bed, Standing Bear promised to have him buried one the tribe's ancestral lands.