#ponca tribe

[frostedmagnolias]

Monsheeda (Dust Maker), and his wife Mehunga (Standing Buffalo), of the Indigenous Ponca tribe, posed together in their wedding photo

c. 1900

[baebeylik]

Indifferent by Julie Buffalohead. 2016. Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. Raised in Minnesota.

Yale University Art Gallery. © Julie Buffalohead/Bockley Gallery.

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

'Historic First': Nebraska Farmers Return Land to Ponca Tribe in Effort to Block Keystone XL

"We want to protect this land," said the tribe's state chairman. "We don't want to see a pipeline go through."

The transfer was celebrated by members of the Ponca Tribe as well as environmental advocates who oppose the construction of the pipeline and continue to demand a total transition to renewable energy.

"We want to protect this land," Larry Wright Jr., the chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, told the World-Herald. "We don't want to see a pipeline go through."

"While TransCanada is trampling on Indigenous rights to fatten their bottom line, Native leaders are resisting by building renewable energy solutions like solar panels in the path of the pipeline," said 350.org executive director May Boeve.

"Repatriating this land to the Ponca Tribe raises new challenges for the Keystone XL pipeline and respects the leadership of Native nations in the fight against the fossil fuel industry," she added. "Tribal sovereignty is central to the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground and build a more just society for all."

a good start to what should be a much larger movement of returning Indigenous lands

[todaysdocument]

“Paxton ... asks permission for certain Ponca Indians to travel with him for one year, and whom he proposes to exhibit, and to lecture upon the Indian character, and solicit funds to assist missionaries … this request … cannot be granted”, 11/17/1871.

Series: General Correspondence, 1862 - 1872

Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1793 - 1999

Transcription:

[page 1]

Department of the Interior,

OFFICE of INDIAN AFFAIRS,

Washington, D.C., [[handwritten]] November 17th, 1871.

Sir:

A letter has been received at this office from Thomas N. Paxton in which he asks permission for certain Ponca Indians to travel with him for one year, and whom he proposes to exhibit, and to lecture upon the Indian character, and solicit funds to assist missionaries among the Poncas. He also states that this project has the approval of the agent.

By direction of the Secretary of the Interior to whom this application was referred, you are informed that this request of Mr. Paxton cannot be granted. It is the policy of this office to gather and keep the Indians upon the reservations assigned them, and this particular project is not considered to be for the interest of the Indians

[page 2]

concerned or of the Indian service.

You will communicate to Mr. Paxton the decision of the Hon. Secretary in regard to his application.

Very Respectfully,

Your obt Servant,

H.R. Clurm

Acting Commissioner

Henry E. Gregory Esq.

U.S. Indian Agent

Ponca Agency

Dakota Ter.

[netnewsnebraska]

Nebraska Omaha Tribe Working To Save Endangered Language, Culture

A spark has been rekindled on the Omaha Indian reservation in northeast Nebraska, where members of the Ponca tribe are doing what they can to save their endangered language. With only a handful of fluent speakers still around, tribal elders say it falls on teaching the next generation to keep it alive. The effort is led by a woman who's 93, a tribal elder known as “Grandma Hawatay.” Read/Listen: http://bit.ly/2LZ1mv8

[todaysdocument]

Letter detailing plans for a new manual labor school on the Ponca reservation (page 3), 9/19/ 1870.

“At the proper time, ten acres or more of grounds is to be cultivated by the children, under the direction of the teacher, for their partial subsistence; the products to be principally garden vegetables.”

Series: General Correspondence, 1862 - 1872

Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1793 - 1999

Transcription:

At the proper time, ten acres or more of grounds is to be cultivated by the children, under the direction of the teacher, for their partial subsistence; the products to be principally garden vegetables. As soon as possible a small quantity of substantial goods, suitable for clothing will be provided; also, a sufficient amount of subsistence to furnish the children with one meal per day, which will be served by the matron, who will superintend the female members of the school teaching them to sew, to cook and the rudiments of housekeeping, and the making of clothes for both sexes.

You will also select from forty to fifty Indian children whom you think will attend promptly and be the most likely to receive substantial benefit from this expenditure.

Very Respectfully,

Your Obt Servt,

John A. Burbank,

Gov & Ex Off Supt Ind Affs.

Lieut. W. H. Hugo,

Indian Agent,

Ponca Agency, D.T.

[slashdementia7734]

CHIEF DUST MAKER, 1898.

[rjzimmerman]

‘We’re Being Wrapped in Poison’: A Century of Oil and Gas Development Has Devastated the Ponca City Region of Northern Oklahoma - Inside Climate News

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Ponca City takes its name from the Ponca Tribe, a Native American tribe that lives nearby. For more than a century, the region, in north central Oklahoma, has been ravaged by the environmental degradation associated with oil and gas development.

From abandoned oil and gas wells to refineries, tank farms and hydraulic fracturing, the pollution and destruction—including damage from thousands of man-made earthquakes—have exacted a heavy toll on the region’s air, land, water and people.

In many ways, Ponca City and its 24,000, predominantly white inhabitants are well off. Its schools, library, sports centers, parks and concert hall would be the envy of most small towns in America.

But interviews with local residents, historical records, legal depositions and internal government reports tell of a sacrifice zone, where oil rights were first taken from the Ponca Tribe and then exploited by the oil and gas industry with little thought given to environmental protection.

The resulting development has left homes enveloped in toxic fumes, black slime oozing from basements, emissions of fine particulate matter that can damage the heart and lungs and walls cracked from earthquakes induced by injecting wastewater from hydraulic fracking deep underground. In one case, the fumes were so overpowering a family was forced to leave their home for several years.

Groundwater contamination from what is now the Phillips 66 refinery led to one of the largest environmental settlements in U.S. history, with the company buying and razing an entire neighborhood in the early 1990s.

But the contamination wasn’t entirely eliminated: Over the last 20 years, the refinery’s owners have bought out and leveled dozens of additional homes, for unstated reasons. But through a review of county property records and well-monitoring data provided by state regulators, Inside Climate News has found that the location of the houses closely tracks unsafe levels of benzene and other contaminants in groundwater, a fact that has not previously been reported. And Phillips 66 has continued to remove contaminants like petroleum oil, gasoline or diesel fuel from extraction wells near the neighborhood.