Tibbles, Susette La Flesche, 1854-1903

Susette La Flesche Tibbles was an Omaha author, lecturer, and advocate for Native American rights. She was also known as Bright Eyes, the English translation of her Omaha name, which has been variously transliterated as Inshta Theamba, Inshta Theumba, and Inshata Theumba.

She was born in 1854 on Omaha lands. (The Omaha Reservation is now located mostly in eastern Nebraska on the Missouri River, with some areas in western Iowa, U.S.) Her parents were Joseph La Flesche (Iron Eye), chief of the Omaha, and Mary Gale (One Woman), daughter of an Iowa woman and a white man. She had four siblings, including physician Susan LaFlesche Picotte, and several half siblings, including ethnologist Francis La Flesche. She was educated at a local mission school and at a girls' school in New Jersey. After graduating, she worked as a teacher on the Omaha Reservation.

In 1879 she testified and acted as an interpreter for Standing Bear, chief of the Ponca, in a habeas corpus hearing. The U.S. government had forcibly relocated the Ponca to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and Standing Bear had been arrested upon his return to Ponca lands. The case established a legal precedent that Native Americans were persons under U.S. law. After the case, again serving as an interpreter, she accompanied Standing Bear on a speaking tour of the eastern United States. In 1881 she married Thomas Henry Tibbles, an editor for the Omaha Herald who had arranged the tour. The couple later traveled with Standing Bear on a lecture tour in Great Britain.

She lived briefly in Washington, D.C., but spent most of her life on the Omaha Reservation. In addition to speaking in support of Native American rights, she wrote, edited, and illustrated stories and books about Native Americans. She also contributed columns to the Omaha Herald and The Independent, a populist newspaper run by Thomas Tibbles. She died on May 26, 1903, near Bancroft, Nebraska.