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BARNESTON, Nebraska — For so long, this sliver of land has pierced the hearts of the Ponca people.

It is their trail of tears, a path trudged 140 years ago by more than 700 people at the end of bayonets belonging to a government the Poncas had never resisted. Soldiers forced men, women and children to relocate from their homeland along the Niobrara River to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, some 500 miles away.

“That’s where our people suffered and died,” said Larry Wright Jr., chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. “And every step that they took south was a step further from home — for many, a place they would never see again.”

Yet on Thursday, with a drum circle and traditional dancers, victory songs and prayers of thanksgiving, this sliver of land lifted the hearts of everyone who stood upon it. A symbol not just of sorrow, but of survival, the nearly 20-mile stretch of recreational trail now formally belongs to the Ponca people.

The Nebraska Trails Foundation signed over the deed of the trail land to the tribe, which renamed the corridor the Chief Standing Bear Trail after the famed Ponca leader who won a landmark civil rights case for Indian people.