— Yellow Wolf of the Nez Percés, 1879

Since the time of his youth, Crazy Horse (Tashunka Witko) had known that the world men lived in was only a shadow of the real world. To get into the real world he had to dream, and when he was in the real world everything seemed to float or dance. In this real world his horse danced as if it were wild or crazy, and this was why he called himself Crazy Horse. He had learned that if he dreamed himself into the real world before going into a fight, he could endure anything.

— Dee Brown, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"

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About the Earth
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Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.

Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people. And the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than to yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch.

— Chief Seattle of the Suquamish, 1853

The earth is part of our body, and we never gave up the earth.

— Toohoolhoolzote, Wallowa prophet, 1877

The earth was created by the assistance of the sun and it should be left as it was... The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man's business to divide it... The one who has the right to dispose of it is the one who has created it.

— Heinmot Tooyalaket (Chief Joseph) of the Nez Percés, 1879

We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy —and when he has conquered it, he moves on.

— Chief Seattle of the Suquamish, 1853

Of the 3,700,000 buffalo destroyed from 1872 through 1874, only 150,000 were killed by Indians. When a group of concerned Texans asked General (Philip) Sheridan* if something should not be done to stop the white hunters' wholesale slaughter, he replied: "Let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance."

— Dee Brown, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"

* General Sheridan is also credited for the infamous phrase: "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

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We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us? Why did He not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly?

Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the book?

Brother, the Great Spirit has made us all. But He has made a great difference between His white and red children. He has given us a different complexion and different customs. Since He has made so great a difference between us in other things, why may we not conclude that He has given us a different religion, according to our understanding?

Brother, we do not wish to destroy your religion or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own.

— Chief Red Jacket of the Seneca, 1805

Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The red man could never comprehend nor remember it.

Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors —the dreams of our old men, given to them in the solemn hours of night by the Great Spirit and the visions of our sachems— and is written in the hearts of our people.

— Chief Seattle of the Suquamish, 1853

We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that.

— Heinmot Tooyalaket (Chief Joseph) of the Nez Percés, 1873

Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander way beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return.

Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant-lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender, fond affection over the lonely-hearted living, and often return from the Great Beyond to visit, guide, console and comfort them.

And when the last red man shall have perished and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the white men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe.

At night, when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death. Only a change of worlds.

— Chief Seattle of the Suquamish, 1853

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Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the great sea? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?

— Tecumseh (Crouching Tiger), Shawnee General

I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures. I was living peaceably when people began to speak bad of me. I want to know now who it was ordered me to be arrested. I was praying to the light and to the darkness, to God and to the sun, to let me live quietly with my family.

— Goyathlay (Geronimo) of the Chiricahua Apache, 1885

If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it he will find it, and that is what the Indians are doing now when they ask you to give them the things that were promised them in the past. And I do not consider that they should be treated like beasts, and that is the reason I have grown up with the feelings I have.

I feel that my country has gotten a bad name, and I want it to have a good name. It used to have a good name, and I sit sometimes and wonder who it is that has given it a bad name.

— Tatanka Yotanka (Sitting Bull) of the Teton Sioux, 1883

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About the Wounded Knee Massacre
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When the madness ended, Big Foot and more than half of his people were dead or seriously wounded; 153 were known dead, but many of the wounded crawled away to die afterward. One estimate placed the final total of dead at very nearly 300 of the original 350 men, women and children.

It was the fourth day after Christmas in the Year of the Lord 1890. When the first torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN.

— Dee Brown, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"

There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce, and the women and children of course were strewn all along the circular village until they were dispatched. Right near the flag of truce a mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing, and that especially was a very sad sight. The women as they were fleeing with their babes were killed together, shot right through, and the women who were very heavy with child were also killed. All the Indians fled in these three directions, and after most all of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys who were not wounded came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there.

— American Horse of the Oglala Sioux, 1891

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, —you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.

— Hehaka Sapa (Black Elk), Medicine Man of the Oglala Sioux, 1931

Shortly after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, members of the 7th Calvary were awarded Medals of (dis)Honor for their "valiant efforts" in defense of what has come to be known as the Great American Way. Please sign the petition to rescind those medals:

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If you want to learn more about the Wounded Knee Massacre, I suggest that you visit:

• In Memory of Wounded Knee ~ A picture is worth a thousand words.
• Cankpe Opi - The Wounded Knee Home Page.
• The Murder of the Wind of Peace - An article written by Wanbli Sapa.
• A Massacre Survivor Speaks...
• Iron Wing's Children - Lots of information about the Massacre.