PONCA

North American Indian people of the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan linguistic stock. Under pressure of settlement by whites, the Ponca migrated westward from the Atlantic coast, settling first in Virginia and the Carolinas. After a time they moved to what is now western Missouri. The Ponca then moved north to present-day Minnesota, where they lived until the late 17th century, when they were driven farther west by the Dakota. They then settled in villages in southwestern Minnesota and the Black Hills of South Dakota. In their semipermanent villages the Ponca lived in earth-covered lodges and engaged in farming. In spring and autumn they moved into portable tepees for the hunting season. The Ponca were never a large tribe; an early estimate places their number at 800. By 1804, when they were encountered by Lewis and Clark, a smallpox epidemic had reduced the tribe to about 200. In 1865 they were guaranteed a reservation on their homelands, but, after tragic bureaucratic blundering, the land was awarded to the Dakota, and the Ponca were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The tribe found living conditions unbearable, and, led by their chief, Standing Bear, they traveled north on foot for 600 miles (965 km) to eastern Nebraska, where they were given asylum by the Omaha. They were arrested, but after a court battle sponsored by whites sympathetic to their cause and by a young Omaha woman named Susette La Flesche (q.v.), they were freed. They settled in Oklahoma. In the late 20th century they numbered somewhat fewer than 1,000.