While displaced from his traditional homelands, Standing Bear's daughter and then son died. Honoring his son's wishes to be buried on Ponca land, Standing Bear returned to his homelands and was arrested for trespassing.

In court in 1879, Standing Bear makes the case that he, like others in the court house, is "a being of flesh and blood." Strategically, Standing Bear compares himself to white people and therefore to white culture, asserting a sameness that works in his favor. This is the first legal recognition of Native people as "real" people in the United States. Henry Dawes, one of the admirers of Standing Bear's action, will use this argument as a foundation for the Dawes Act, which will end the collective ownership of tribal land and force individual ownership.