Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path.
If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man, he would have made me so in the first place.
I was very sorry when I found out that your intentions were good and not what I supposed they were.
The white people have no right to take the land from the Indians, because the Indians had it first.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.
Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view and demand that they respect yours.
They want us to give up another chunk of our tribal land. This is not the first time or the last time.
Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them.
What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.
I am a Shawnee. My forefathers were warriors. Their son is a warrior. From them, I take my only existence.
Even if you live forty or fifty years in this world, and then die, you cannot take all your goods with you.
I want to tell you that if the Great Spirit had chosen anyone to be the chief of this country, it is myself.
Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.
I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place.
The soldiers never explained to the government when an Indian was wronged, but reported the misdeeds of the Indians.
Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father.
My friends, your people have both intellect and heart; you use these to consider in what way you can do the best to live.
The whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me, and I am not hard to swindle because I do not know how to read and write.
Go back home where you came from. This country is mine, and I intend to stay here and to raise this country full of grown people.
Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers.
They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.
I was warmed by the sun, rocked by the winds and sheltered by the trees as other Indian babes. I can go everywhere with a good feeling.
The Great Spirit will not make me suffer because I am ignorant. He will put me in a place where I shall be better off than in this world.
Brothers, we must be united; we must smoke the same pipe; we must fight each other's battles; and more than all, we must love the Great Spirit.
Sell a country?! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?
You come here to tell us lies, but we don't want to hear them. If we told you more, you would have paid no attention. That is all I have to say.
Before the palefaces came among us, we enjoyed the happiness of unbounded freedom and were acquainted with neither riches, wants, nor oppression.
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.
They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse.
Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?
What treaty have the Sioux made with the white man that we have broken? Not one. What treaty have the white man ever made with us that they have kept? Not one.
Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also.
What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?
I will protect my people if I live. For myself I do not fear for I have the word of Usen. Who is the White Nantan to think he can pit his power against that of Usen?
When Jesus Christ came upon the Earth, you killed Him. The son of your own God. And only after He was dead did you worship Him and start killing those who would not.
I do not wish to be shut up in a corral. All agency Indians I have seen are worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are neither wolf nor dog.
If I agree to dispose of any part of our land to the white people I would feel guilty of taking food away from our children's mouths, and I do not wish to be that mean.
I was no chief and never had been, but because I had been more deeply wronged than others, this honor was conferred upon me, and I resolved to prove worthy of the trust.
Since my life as a prisoner has begun I have heard the teachings of the white man's religion, and in many respects believe it to be better than the religion of my fathers
There are things they tell us that sound good to hear, but when they have accomplished their purpose they will go home and will not try to fulfill our agreements with them.
Brothers, the white people are like poisonous serpents: when chilled they are feeble and harmless, but invigorate them with warmth and they sting their benefactors to death.
I have made myself what I am. And I would that I could make the red people as great as the conceptions of my own mind, when I think of the Great Spirit that rules over us all.
Inside of me there are two dogs. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.
Our religion seems foolish to you, but so does yours to me. The Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and the Catholics all have a different God. Why cannot we have one of our own?
Since my residence at Tippecanoe, we have endeavored to level all distinctions, to destroy village chiefs, by whom all mischiefs are done. It is they who sell the land to the Americans.
When I was a young man, I was poor. In a war with other nations, I was in eighty-seven fights. There I received my name and was made Chief of my nation. But now I am old and am for peace.
I have killed, robbed, and injured too many white men to believe in a good peace. They are medicine, and I would eventually die a lingering death. I had rather die on the field of battle.
It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.