| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.2 | The History Cooperative

Valerie Sherer Mathes and Richard Lowitt. The Standing Bear Controversy: Prelude to Indian Reform. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2003. Pp. x, 211. $29.95.
In 1879, Standing Bear, a member of the Ponca Tribe, and others of his family left Oklahoma to return home to Nebraska to bury Standing Bear's son. He was stopped by the army, and local lawyers sought his release. Newspapers picked up the story and helped to mobilize a nascent Indian reform movement. The case also helped make Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts the leader of congressional efforts to reform Indian policy. The reputation of Secretary of the Interior Karl Shurz was damaged by his handling of these events.	1
In this book, Valerie Sherer Mathes and Richard Lowitt offer a modern treatment of the controversy. The strongest part of the book is the narrative of how events unfolded. Official reports and later congressional testimony often contradict one another, and the authors show how hard it would have been for the officials to know the real situation. The Ponca were a small, peaceful tribe that in 1865 signed a treaty establishing a reservation on the Niobrara River in Nebraska. By mistake, the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) included the Ponca reservation in the Great Sioux reservation. In order to protect the tribe from the more aggressive Lakota (Sioux), Congress authorized moving the Ponca to new lands in the Indian Territory, if the tribe agreed.	. . .

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