Lyda Conley: The First Native American Woman To Argue Before The Supreme Court
Public DomainLyda Conley boldly argued before the Supreme Court to save her tribe’s ancestral burial ground.
When Eliza “Lyda” Burton Conley realized that white developers wanted to snatch up her tribe’s ancestral burial ground, she resolved to defend it. Conley got a law degree — no small feat for a woman in 1902 — and physically guarded the cemetery’s entrance with her musket.
“I will go to Washington and personally defend [the cemetery],” Conley avowed. “No lawyer could plead for the grave of my mother as I could, no lawyer could have the heart interest in the case that I have.”
Born to a mother from the Wyandotte tribe and an English farmer around 1868, Conley grew up in Kansas. She later learned that some developers wanted to repurpose the Huron Indian Cemetery, located in Kansas City, Kansas. As the city grew, it had become a valuable piece of land.
Conley had a personal stake in the matter. Her family had buried her mother and one of her sisters in the cemetery. But Conley also believed that an 1855 federal treaty with the Wyandotte protected the land from development.
Determined to make her case, she enrolled as one of the only women at the Kansas City School of Law and gained admission to the Missouri Bar in 1902. When Congress approved legislation to sell the land and move the bodies buried there four years later, Conley was ready to fight back.
First, she filed an injunction against the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and Indian Commissioners in the U.S. District Court. Then, Conley and one of her sisters set up camp in front of the cemetery. Armed with a gun, they built a shack called “Fort Conley” to discourage any potential trespassers.
The battle went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Conley became the first Native American woman to argue a case before the justices. They listened to her, but they ultimately sided with the developers.
Nevertheless, Conley continued to fight. She spent most of her time at the cemetery — until she was murdered during a robbery in 1946. After that, others picked up the baton, inspired by her devotion to the cause.
In 1971, the Huron Indian Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places. And in 2017, it was designated a National Historic Landmark, preventing any development in the future. Lyda Conley didn’t live to see it, but the cemetery — where she too was buried — was saved.
