The statue of Chief Standing Bear stands proud as the lights of the Conoco-Phillips refinery glow in the dusk light less than 1000 yards away.

PONCA CITY, Okla. – In this town northeast of Oklahoma City, there is a statue of Standing Bear, who was chief of the Ponca tribe. Go there at night, and you can see symbols of seven tribes, a natural gas flame at the center of a faux campfire, and in the background the lights of an oil refinery.

In Lincoln, Nebraska, I had a drink with journalist Joe Starita, who wrote “I am a Man; Chief Stand Bear’s Journey for Justice,” which I later read. The book is a well-told, moving tale of how the Ponca tribe was forced by U.S. troops and an Interior Department agent in 1877 to abandon their traditional lands in northern Nebraska and march south to Oklahoma, which was then known as Indian Territory. This was done despite the fact that the Ponca tribe was a role model of what the United States government was trying to achieve with Native Americans. The tribe had signed four treaties with the United States government, given up much of its territory, settled into farming life, and built churches. During the forced march south, a third of the tribe died of disease and exhaustion.

The forced marches of Poncas and other Native American tribes are known as the “trails of tears” and I was struck by two maps in Joe’s book. One shows the Ponca lands in northern Nebraska; those lands sat alongside the Niobrara River, one of the key crossings for the Keystone XL pipeline. We drove over that river and photographed a family swimming and strolling on sand bars in the river. The second shows the Ponca Trail of Tears from May 16 to July 9, 1877. The trail – from the Niobrara over the Platte River through the town of Seward and crossing the Nebraska border near what today is Steele City — is almost identical to the proposed path of the Keystone XL pipeline through Nebraska and northern Kansas.

The scattering of Indian tribes makes it hard today to figure out which tribe has what rights, and when a construction project might stumble into an archaeological site or a traditional burial ground.

Whatever happened to Standing Bear?  He sued the U.S. government, despite the fact that the courts had not decided whether Indians were actually people and thus able to file suit. Starita recounts a dramatic courtroom moment when Standing Bear, in a Shakespearean echo, held up his right hand and said: “That hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be of the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both.”

Standing Bear traveled throughout the country to raise money for his legal battle. He dined at Chicago’s Palmer House with leading citizens of the city. In Boston, he met the mayor, the Massachusetts governor, a wealthy publisher and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow the poet. In New York, Josiah Fiske, the business titan, threw a dinner for the chief at Fiske’s spacious Fifth Avenue home and Standing Bear spoke to a thousand people in the city’s Steinway Hall.

Though Standing Bear won his legal battle, the Poncas remained mostly in Oklahoma. The legacy of forced removals has not been shaken. For tribes like the Poncas, the boundaries of their tribal areas can be unclear. The federal government’s policy gave Indians the right to buy private plots, or allotments. The tribe has some jurisdiction over some of those areas. Legislation also provides for the protection of historical sites of Native Americans.

For TransCanada, it means that Oklahoma can be a delicate place to work; it carries a heavy historical burden. Yes, there are many pipelines and tank farms and refineries and oil wells in Oklahoma on Indian territory (not to mention casinos).

And the tribes, and according to various treaties and U.S. legislation, are entitled to be consulted. Last December, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued order number 3317: “Government to government consultation between appropriate tribal officials and the Department requires Departmental officials to demonstrate in a meaningful commitment to consultation by identifying and involving Tribal representatives in a meaningful way.”

Thanks to Standing Bear the tribe can sue, too.