Helen Hunt Jackson is both the book’s author and one of its key actors. A poet and literary figure of some note, Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor after learning about Standing Bear and the plight of the tiny Ponca tribe.

The public records of the War Department and the Department of the Interior made A Century of Dishonor possible, revealing a history of lying, cheating, and stealing on the part of the US government. The documents were freely available, but only Jackson took the trouble to research and organize them in a way that would tell the story of individual tribes.

Jackson also became an advocate for Indigenous Americans, which brought her national attention: Her exchange of letters with William Byers about the Sand Creek Massacre appeared in the New York Tribune, while her correspondence with Carl Schurz over the Ponca case appeared in other newspapers.

In the 1870s, US government officials fraudulently cheated the Poncas out of their lands, and then force-marched them to Indian Territory, where many died. Standing Bear and others escaped the reservation and fled northward. After they were overtaken and imprisoned, concerned citizens in Nebraska helped the Poncas bring their case to federal court, where Judge Elmer Dundy ruled that the Poncas had the same habeas corpus protection as US citizens.