Helen Hunt Jackson - from 'A Century of Dishonor'

The Poncas had enough to deal with before the pale faces of Europe began to rape their land and their women. Constantly in conflict with the more powerful Sioux they were forced to relocate and join forces with the Mahas tribe. After this relationship was established the Poncas were estimated to be about 600 strong in 1829. After a relationship was established with white men, who brought with them “whisky and small-pox” their numbers fell to about 120. It seems the former rapport was much more advantageous.

George Catlin, an artist who visited the Poncas around 1832, gives a deep account of the chief that illustrates him as an intellectual leader of a civil nation rather than a savage director of a barbaric, feral population. Describing the chief “who was wrapped in a buffalo-robe” he uses imagery that provokes a comparison to kings wrapped in royal garb. With descriptive language like “noble” and “dignified” he civilizes the man. After humanizing this man, who at the time, was thought by most to be bestial, Catlin then depicts his suffering and the suffering of his tribe with great sympathy. Catlin cries out and declares the “poor, noble chief, who was equal to and worthy of a greater empire” instead “overlook[s] the little cluster of his wigwams mingled among trees, and, like Caius Marius weeping over the ruins of Carthage, shed tears”.

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