In 1879, an attorney named John Lee Webster represented Chief Standing Bear of Nebraska’s Ponca Tribe in a landmark court case that legally recognized Native Americans as people
Standing Bear was arrested trying to return his son’s body to his ancestral lands, as Native Americans weren’t allowed to leave their reservations at the time. Webster and Standing Bear won their case, as well as new rights for Native Americans across the United States. In return, Standing Bear gifted Webster his pipe tomahawk, which was sold off to various collectors after Webster’s death — and eventually ended up at Harvard University in 1982. And last month, the university finally returned the relic to the Ponca Tribe in a repatriation ceremony.