White Buffalo Girl, the daughter of Black Elk and Moon Hawk, came to symbolize the tragic 1877 removal of the Ponca from their homeland on the Niobrara River to Indian Territory in present Oklahoma. Treaties in 1858 and 1865 greatly reduced the size of the original Ponca Reservation, though the tribe remained peaceful. An 1868 error in the Treaty of Fort Laramie ceded Ponca lands to their enemy the Dakota Sioux, leading to eight years of repeated raids against the Ponca and ending in the tribe’s forced removal to a new reservation. The journey to Indian Territory was plagued by muddy roads and floods caused by heavy spring rains, and most of the tribe suffered from disease and hardship. Several children, including White Buffalo Girl, died and were buried along the route that became known as the Ponca Trail of Tears. The people of Neligh provided a Christian funeral for White Buffalo Girl, and an oak cross was erected at her grave. Black Elk’s last request was that his daughter’s grave be honored and cared for by the people of the town, and in 1913 a marble monument was erected as her grave continued to be maintained and decorated in memory of White Buffalo Girl and the Ponca.