"In 1909, Julius Meyer, a Prussian-born retailer of American Indian crafts, a former spokesman for several tribes, and an important member of the Jewish community in Omaha, Neb., was found dead in the city's Hanscom Park, with one bullet in his skull and another in his chest.

Though a gun was never found and Meyer, who never married, left no note, the coroner called the death a suicide. That an observant Jew, to whom suicide is a sin, could shoot himself twice is mysterious enough, but the question at the heart of Philadelphia writer Gerald Kolpan's new Wild West novel is even more intriguing, and has to do with one of the most famous court cases in American history.

That case occurred in 1879, when Chief Standing Bear of the Ponca tribe sued the U.S. government for unlawful imprisonment. The government's position was that the chief was not a "person," and therefore, the Constitution's requirement of a writ of habeas corpus did not apply.

In one of many superb scenes in his novel, Kolpan quotes the chief's speech to the jury, told through an intepreter: "This hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you, too, feel pain. The blood that flows from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. God made us both.""

Get the Story:
Kolpan's "Magic Words" is a novel, Wild West take on American Jewish life (The Philadelphia Inquirer 7/1)

Related Stories:
Ponca Chief Standing Bear descendants hail book on court case (6/14)