You will...use all means to persuade any tribe to come in for the purpose of making peace,
and when you get them together kill all the grown Indians and take the children...
sell them as slaves to defray the cost...
-John R. Baylor, Confederate Governor, 1862

Though we are powerful and strong, and we know how to fight,we do not wish to fight.
-The Cherokees

Chief John Ross led in prayer and when the bugle sounded and the wagons started rolling
many of the children waved their little hands goodbye - to their mountain homes.
-Private John Burnett, Calvary soldier during the removal

The Cherokee people stand upon new ground.
Let us hope the clouds which overspread the land will be dispersed,
and that we shall prosper as we have never before done.
-Chief John Ross, 1861

When the sun goes down, he opens his heart to God,
and earlier than the sun appears on the hills,
he gives thanks for his protection during the night.
-Cornplant, 1791

In all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast aside.
you shall look and listen to the welfare of the whole people and have always in view,
not only the present but the coming generations - the unborn of the future Nation.
Dekawidah, 1720

The land...belongs to the first who sits down on his blanket...
which he has thrown down on the ground, and till he leaves it, no other has a right.
-Tecumseh,

There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea...
that time long since passed...I will not mourn.

I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay,
nor reproach our paleface brothers for hastening it...

Day and night cannot dwell together.
Your religion was written on tablets of stone, ours was written on our hearts.
-Chief Seattle

Tell them how we loved all that was beautiful.
-The American Indian

There was a time when I had a choice.
-Red Eagle

I am opening my heart to speak to you...open yours to receive my words.
-Como

You have said to me...that I could send out a voice four times...and you could hear me.
Today I send a voice for a people in despair.

The good road and the road of difficulties you have made me cross;
and where they cross, the place is holy.
-Black Elk

No one ever saw the Indian destroy something the Great Creator gave to man for his needs.
-Red Fox

Why do you take by force what you could obtain by love?
-Powhatan

How can we trust you? When Jesus Christ came on earth, you killed him and nailed him to a cross.
-Tecumseh, 1810

We were content to let things remain as the Great Spirit has made them.
-Chief Joseph, Nes Perce'

Do with me what you please. I surrender. Once I moved about like the wind.
Now I surrender to you and that is all.
-Geronimo to General Crook, 1886

Martin Luther King said, "I have a dream...". But we Indians didn't have a dream.
We had a reality.
-Ben Black Elk