This book began in the 1970s with a curiosity to learn more about Standing Bear and the Poncas after I read a brief chapter about their struggles in Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. In the 1990s my research gathered pace. The more I learned, the more the story haunted me. In recent times the project has garnered a host of supporters. My special thanks go to the Ponca tribe of Nebraska, in particular Chairman Mark Peniska and special projects coordinator Shaune Bell for her patient collaboration. Also to the Omaha tribe of Nebraska and Iowa, in particular Chairman Donald Grant, and to the dedicated Richard Chilton of the Omaha Tribal Historical Research Project. My sincere thanks also go to the Ponca for welcoming my wife and me to their annual powwow. I’m also greatly indebted to John Gottschalk, publisher of the Omaha World-Herald newspaper, the modern-day successor to T. H. Tibbles’s paper, and his hard-working assistant Donna Grimm, for their detailed assistance.
To Marnie Cochran and Bob Pigeon at Perseus Books, thank you for seeing the potential of Standing Bear’s story and for steering me down the focused path. My grateful thanks too go to my New York literary agent, Richard Curtis, who has guided and encouraged me and championed my work—our collaboration has been one of the joys of my life. But the greatest joy of my life is my wife, Louise, who has shared all the joys and disappointments of the writer’s life with me for many years, and who, like me, abhors injustice. One of Louise’s friends calls her Mrs. Sparkle; she does indeed put a sparkle in my every day.