Video courtesy of Omaha World Herald.
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The Standing Bear vs. Crook trial inspired the Tibbles to take a stand. After being relocated to Oklahoma, Standing Bear went back home to the Omaha Reservation to bury his dead son. General George Crook arrested Standing Bear for leaving the Indian Reservation and was put on trial. Judge Elmer Dundy’s verdict was that “an Indian is a person”. Bright Eyes was Standing Bear’s interpreter, while Thomas Tibbles was the journalist for the Omaha Daily Herald. |
“ During the fifteen years in which I have been engaged in administering the laws of my country, I have never been called upon to decide a case that appealed so strongly to my sympathy as the one now under the consideration…[I]f the strongest possible sympathy could give the realtors title to freedom, they would have restored to liberty the moment the arguments in their behalf were closed. No examination or further thought would then have been necessary or expedient.”
“ I cannot doubt that congress intended to give every person who might be unlawfully restrained of liberty under the color of authority of the United States the right to the writ and a discharge thereon. I conclude...that the realtors are within the jurisdiction conferred by the habeas corpus act.” “[A]n Indian is a person within the meaning of the laws of the United States, and has, therefore, the right to sue out a writ of habeas corpus in a federal court, or before a federal judge, in all cases he where he may confined or in custody under color of authority of the United States, or where he is restrained of liberty in violation of the constitution of the laws of the United States.” -Judge Elmer Dundy |
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“[Thomas,] you have found a better way. You have gone into court for us and I find our wrongs can be righted there. Now I have no more use for the tomahawk. I want to lay it down forever. (Here he stooped down, laid the tomahawk on the floor, and then stood erect and folded his arms.) I lay it down, I have no more use for it. I have found a better way." - Standing Bear to T. Tibbles
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