Listen free for 30 days

  • "I Am a Man"

  • Chief Standing Bear's Journey for Justice
  • Written by: Joe Starita
  • Narrated by: Armando Duran
  • Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
"I Am a Man" cover art

"I Am a Man"

Written by: Joe Starita
Narrated by: Armando Duran
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $31.27

Buy Now for $31.27

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

In 1877, Chief Standing Bear's Ponca Indian tribe was forcibly removed from their Nebraska homeland and marched to Oklahoma - known then as Indian Territory - in what became the tribe's own Trail of Tears.

"I Am a Man" chronicles what happened when Standing Bear set off on a 600-mile walk to return the body of his only son to their traditional burial grounds. Along the way, it examines the complex relationship between the United States government and the small, peaceful tribe and the legal consequences of land swaps and broken treaties, while never losing sight of the heartbreaking journey the Ponca endured. It is an account of people left for dead who survived injustice, disease, neglect, starvation, humiliation, and termination. On another level, it is a story of life and death, despair and fortitude, freedom and patriotism; a story of Christian kindness and bureaucratic evil; a story of hope, of a people still among us today, painstakingly preserving a cultural identity that had sustained them for centuries before their encounter with Lewis and Clark in the fall of 1804.

Before it ends, Standing Bear's long journey home also explores fundamental issues of citizenship, constitutional protection, cultural identity, and the nature of democracy - issues that continue to resonate loudly in 21st-century America. It is a story that questions whether native sovereignty, tribal-based societies, and cultural survival are compatible with American democracy.

Standing Bear successfully used habeas corpus, the only liberty included in the original text of the Constitution, to gain access to a federal court and ultimately his freedom. This account aptly illuminates how the nation's delicate system of checks and balances worked almost exactly as the Founding Fathers envisioned, a system arguably out of whack and under siege today.

©2008 Joe Starita (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

More from the same

What listeners say about "I Am a Man"

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.