Career
At 16 years of age, he traveled to Kansas and participated in the "Bleeding Kansas" slavery-related border conflict on the side of the abolitionists. There, he served under James H. Lane and John Brown. Taken prisoner by pro-slavery forces, he was sentenced to be hanged but escaped.
After the end of the Kansas hostilities, he spent some time with the Omaha, even accompanying them in a conflict with the Sioux.
He was later active, among other things, as a Methodist preacher in the frontier territory before turning to journalism. As assistant editor of the Omaha Daily Herald, he was instrumental in bringing the case of Standing Bear and the Ponca Indian people before the United States District Court at Fort Omaha in 1879.
This case was famous for its ruling that "an Indian is a person," with all the rights of full citizens. Tibbles was a witness to the aftermath of the massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1891, and reported this tragedy to the world.
From 1893-1895, he worked as a newspaper correspondent in Washington District of Columbia On returning to Nebraska, Tibbles became editor-in-chief of The Independent, a weekly Populist Party newspaper.
He was the Populist Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1904.
