Chief Standing Bear A CDV of Standing Bear wearing a bear claw necklace. Standing Bear was a Ponca chief and civil rights leader who won a landmark 1879 federal court ruling establishing that Native Americans are "persons" under U.S. law. In 1877, the U.S. government forced the Ponca from Nebraska to Indian Territory (Oklahoma), where sickness and starvation killed a third of the tribe, including his son. He walked 600 miles back to Nebraska in 1879 to bury his son's remains in his homeland, leading to his arrest. In Standing Bear v. Crook, a federal judge agreed with his famous plea—"I am a man. The same God made us both"—granting Native Americans habeas corpus rights for the first time. Back marked Price & Campbell, New York.