His 34-year tenure as the Ponca head of state spanned the most consequential period of cultural and political change in their history, beginning with the unlawful Ponca Trail of Tears in 1877 and continuing through his successful effort to obtain justice for his people by utilizing the American media to wage a public relations campaign against the United States and President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Little Chief remembered that this young man dressed and painted himself in a peculiar manner, and thought that he did so that he might act in accordance with a dream, and therefore it was probable that he possessed more than ordinary power and courage.

As White Eagle was Iron Whip's first born son, there is an equally low probability that he was born in 1840, a year made all the more unlikely as White Eagle was documented as a junior chief on August 8, 1846, when he accompanied a high ranking Ponca delegation that sought to establish diplomatic relationship with Brigham Young's Mormon Pioneers during their emigration to the Great Basin.

Known as the Ponca Trail of Tears, this removal was a six-hundred mile forced march spanning three modern-day states, resulting in numerous deaths en route.

[7] The second party was to consist of the vast majority of the Ponca citizenry numbering about 500 people, including White Eagle and his vice chief Standing Bear.

For nearly a month, White Eagle and Standing Bear resisted the unlawful efforts of Edward Cleveland Kemble, the federal agent sent by President Ulysses S. Grant, to force the Ponca removal by fraud.

On April 24, 1877, General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered two companies of American soldiers to Ponca territory to force their compliance.

The soldiers got on their horses, went to all the houses, broke open the doors, took our household utensils, put them in their wagons, and pointing their bayonets at our people, ordered them to move.

For a time, every male in camp was on the warpath, and for about two hours the most intense excitement prevailed, heightened by continued loud crying by all the women and children.

The wind blew a heavy gale and the rain fell in torrents, so that it was impossible to see more than four or five rods distant, thoroughly drenching every person and every article in the [wagon] train, making a fitting end to a journey commenced by wading a river and thereafter encountering innumerable storms.

During the last few days of the journey the weather was exceedingly hot, and the teams terribly annoyed and bitten by green-head flies, which attacked them in great numbers.

The people were all nearly worn out from the fatigue of the march, and we're heartily glad that the long, tedious journey was at an end, that they might take that rest so much required for the recuperation of their physical natures.

Among the victims were White Eagle's wife, four of his children, and his father Iron Whip,[10] who preceded him as hereditary chief of the Ponca from 1846 until his abdication in 1870.

White Eagle's leadership during the Ponca removal crisis played a central role in the series of events culminating in a landmark civil rights ruling in 1879 recognizing Native Americans as persons due civil rights under the Constitution of the United States for the first time in American history in Standing Bear v. Crook.

The efforts of both White Eagle and Standing Bear generated significant support from many notable Americans of the time including the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, former abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and author Helen Hunt Jackson who advocated on behalf of the Ponca by writing the seminal book on Native American civil rights entitled A Century of Dishonor.

Nebraska journalist Thomas Tibbles traveled the country on a speaking tour to raise the money necessary for the Ponca to appeal their removal to the United States Supreme Court.

Tibbles "thought that, if the Christian people of this country only knew of these horrors, they would be glad to help White Eagle in getting out of the Indian Territory, and saving from death the little children.

"[11] Tibbles appealed to large audiences "not only help White Eagle, but in so doing, burst the infamous Indian Ring," which was a corrupt segment of political appointees.

On October 22, 1880, White Eagle symbolically declared his intention to remain in the Indian Territory by laying the cornerstone of a school on the Ponca Agency alongside Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.

[13] White Eagle deposited the Sioux scalp taken by his grandfather Chief Little Bear in a box at the laying of the cornerstone, symbolically closing a chapter of Ponca history.

For the first time in the memory of the tribe, when the chiefs and head men met in council that night, a white boy sat in the center and answered their questions in their own tongue.

After successfully obtaining reparations for the unlawful removal, White Eagle remained a prominent advocate for Native American civil rights and the advancement of his people.

In exchange, the United States would grant citizenship to individual Native Americans who agreed to accept small allotments of land.

In 1891, White Eagle appeared before a panel convened by President Harrison who told him they needed more of his land due to the wave of new immigrants.

To their disappointment, the Poncas declined all invitations to ride a wagon around the plots with White Eagle declaring that he already knew the size of 80 acres.

The balance of the purchase price would be placed in the United States Treasury where it would earn 5% interest, which would be paid annually at the rate of $10 per month to each tribal member.

White Eagle continually asserted his authority and utilized his tactic of delay, saying he was not prepared to give any direction to his people on the issue until the federal plan was fully articulated.

He also leased significant acreage of the Ponca Reservation in the Indian Territory to the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch who used the land to establish what would become one of the most recognizable names in ranching and western entertainment, staging Wild West shows that provided employment for the Ponca people and entertained such personalities as King George V of the United Kingdom, President Theodore Roosevelt, and Will Rogers.

[19] Dalí transformed White Eagle's eyes into a scene depicting 17th century Dutch colonists seemingly celebrating Peter Minuit's 1621 acquisition of Manhattan Island from the indigenous owners for the proverbial string of beads by toasting bottles of Coca-Cola.

[19] British art historian Dawn Adès has argued that Dalí's work, known as Nieuw Amsterdam, symbolizes the foundations of American capitalism in the Dutch traders’ purchase of New York.