Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History Of The American West Quotes
"When did he run away from his enemies? When did he leave his braves behind him on the warpath and turn back to his tepee?"
"You may kill one—two—ten; yes, as many as the leaves in the forest yonder, and their brothers will not miss them."
"Yes; they fight among themselves, but if you strike at them they will all turn on you and devour you and your women and little children just as the locusts in their time fall on the trees and devour all the leaves in one day."
"My God and my mother live in the West, and I will not leave them."
"When we had to fight for a few days we felt fresh, but in a short time we were worn out and the soldiers starved us out."
"I am too powerful and too just a people to repay that confidence with meanness or neglect—feeling that having sacrificed to us their beautiful country, they will not dole out to them a miser’s pittance in return for what they know to be and what we know to be a princely realm."
"The nights and days were long before it came time for us to go to our homes."
"The Indian was the dark menace of the myths, and even if he had known how to write in English, where would he have found a printer or a publisher?"
"This is not a cheerful book, but history has a way of intruding upon the present, and perhaps those who read it will have a clearer understanding of what the American Indian is, by knowing what he was."
"Ta-oya-te-duta is not a coward; he will die with you."
"The sky has been dark ever since the war began."
"If we could take it, we would soon have the whole Minnesota Valley."
"Now no peace. We want to go and meet our families in the spirit land."
"Nothing lives long, only the earth and the mountains."
"They commenced the war and forced the Indians to fight."
"The whites fired their cannons at us as we were leaving the field, but they might as well have beaten a big drum for all the harm they did."
"We loved the whites until we found out they lied to us, and robbed us of what we had."
"The Great Spirit raised both the white man and the Indian. I think he raised the Indian first." - Red Cloud
"The white man has crowded the Indians back year by year, until we are forced to live in a small country north of the Platte."
"We think we have been much wronged, and are entitled to compensation for the damage and distress caused by making so many roads through our country."
"Our forefathers, when alive, lived all over this country; they did not know about doing wrong; since then they have died, and gone I don’t know where. We have all lost our way."
"It will be a very hard thing to leave the country that God gave us. Our friends are buried there, and we hate to leave these grounds."
"War is bad, peace is good. We must choose the good and not the bad."
"We are on the mountains looking down on the soldiers and the forts. When we see the soldiers moving away and the forts abandoned, then I will come down and talk."
"All the words have proved to be false. ... There was a treaty made ... but yet he didn’t tell the truth."
"Look at that young man. He is feeling good because his sweetheart is watching him."
"We never did the white man any harm; we don’t intend to. We are willing to be friends with the white man."
"Are not women and children more timid than men? The Cheyenne warriors are not afraid."
"We were once friends with the whites, but you nudged us out of the way by your intrigues."
"I don’t want to run over the mountains anymore; I want to make a big treaty."
"God made the white man and God made the Apache, and the Apache has just as much right to the country as the white man."
"Whenever they see us they fire, and we fire on them."
"Your soldiers look just like those who butchered the women and children there."
"The white man is coming out here so fast that nothing can stop him."
"The white people have put bad medicine over Red Cloud’s eyes."
"The operations of General Hancock have been so disastrous to the public interests."
"Life is sweet, love is strong; man fights to save his life; man also kills to win his heart’s desire; that is love."
"My people have never first drawn a bow or fired a gun against the whites."
"If the Texans had kept out of my country, there might have been peace."
"The white man’s laws are good for the white men, but they are made so as to leave the Indian out."
"I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die."
"When I was young I walked all over this country, east and west, and saw no other people than the Apaches."
"I don’t want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies."
"I was born where there were no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath."
"For the Comanches there was something ironic in the government’s forcing them to turn away from buffalo hunting to farming."
"Was it not the Indian who first taught the white man how to plant corn and make it grow?"
"A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers here on its banks."
"The white men seemed to hate everything in nature."
"The Kiowas could not live without their buffalo hunts."
"You tell us that we must learn to farm, live in one house, and take on your ways."
"We were born naked, and have been taught to hunt and live on the game."
"When the grass was tall and the horses strong, Crazy Horse dreamed himself into the real world."
"I saw a great dust rising. It looked like a whirlwind."
"The greater portion of our warriors came together in their front and we rushed our horses on them."
"The land known as the Black Hills is considered by the Indians as the center of their land."
"One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk."
"My heart has for many years been very warm toward the red man."
"The earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was."
"The only way to get us there is to come in here with clubs and knock us on the head."
"I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done."
"Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before I have in my heart."
"We have been south and suffered a great deal down there."
"You have driven me from the East to this place, and I have been here two thousand years or more."
"This land is truly sickly, and we’ll be apt to die here."
"The Poncas, of course, had nothing to do with the Custer fight, had never engaged in any warfare with the United States."
"When a man tries to do right, such stories ought not to be put in the newspapers." - Goyathlay (Geronimo)
"I have never been called upon to hear or decide a case that appealed so strongly to my sympathy." - Judge Dundy
"We are too culpable, as a nation, for the existing condition of affairs." - General George Crook
"You can take our women and children in your wagons, but my men will not go!" - Victorio
"I would rather have the money in the bank." - Ouray the Arrow
"I am not taking your arms from you, because I am not afraid of you." - General George Crook
"I’ll not take you to your homes; walk there if you want to." - United States Indian Inspector
"The Indians seem to consider the advance of the troops as a declaration of real war." - John Clum
"It is much better sometimes to do what does not please us just now, if we think it will be best for our children." - Felix R. Brunot
"I am of the opinion that the removal of the Poncas from the northern climate of Dakota to the southern climate of the Indian Territory will prove a mistake." - Agent Howard
"Having been placed in irons once before when the band was shipped to San Carlos, some of the leaders determined not to undergo such treatment again."
"I paid no attention to him, knowing that I had done no wrong."
"Geronimo later explained it this way: 'I left because I learned that the Americans were going to arrest me and hang me.'"
"Crook knew that personal negotiation was the only way to deal with three dozen Apache warriors."
"Geronimo and the other leaders finally decided to listen to Chato and Alchise."
"Do with me what you please. I surrender. Once I moved about like the wind. Now I surrender to you and that is all."
"The Great Father in Washington recommended that he be hanged."
"I feared treachery," Geronimo said afterward, "and when we became suspicious, we turned back."
"If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it he will find it."
"The Great Father will give you 25,000 cows and 1,000 bulls."
"We gave up nearly all of our land, and you had better take the balance now."
"What I take back is what I said to cause the people to leave the council."
"I feel that my country has gotten a bad name, and I want it to have a good name."
"I am going to talk to you after a while about your relatives who are dead and gone."
"The bullets will not go toward you. The prairie is large and the bullets will not go toward you."
"The white men were frightened and called for soldiers."
"They screamed like crazy men to Him for mercy."
"The people did not know; they did not care. They snatched at the hope."
"The white men knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it."
"They promised to take our land, and they took it."
"The land was ours before we were the land's."
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
"The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."
"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."