Great Speeches by Native Americans

Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Note
Part I. - SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
	ACUERA (Timucua) - “With such a people I want no peace” (c. 1540)
	POWHATAN, WAHUNSONACOCK (Powhatan) - “Why should you destroy us, who have provided you with food?” (c. 1609)
	CHIKATAUBUT (Massachuset) - “Thy mother doth complain, implores thy aid against this thievish people new come hither” (c. 1620)
	MIANTINOMO (Narraganset) - “Brothers, we must be one as the English are, or we shall soon all be destroyed” (c. 1642—1643)
	KING PHILIP, METACOM (Wampanoag) - “The English who came first to this country were but a handful of people” (1676)
	SWERISE (Oneida) - “But where are our prisoners?” (May 24, 1679)
	UNNAMED (Onondaga and Cayuga) - “Our young men are soldiers, and when they are provoked, they are like wolves” (August 2, 1684)
	GARANGULA (Onondaga) - “Yonnondio, you must have believed when you left Quebec that the sun had burnt up all the forests which render our country unaccessible to the French” (1684)
	UNNAMED (Iroquois) - “If the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education” (1744)
	MINAVAVANA (Chippewa/Ojibway) - “Englishman!—You know that the French king is our father” (1761)
	PONTIAC (Ottawa) - “The Master of Life” (April 27, 1763)
	PONTIAC (Ottawa) - “I am a Frenchman, and I wish to die a Frenchman” (May 23, 1763)
	RED HAWK (Shawnee) - “We saw you coming with an uplifted tomahawk in your hand” (November 12, 1764)
	UNNAMED (Naudowessie) - “Thy soul yet lives in the great Country of Spirits” (c. 1767)
	JAMES LOGAN, TAHGAHJUTE (Cayuga) - “I appeal to any white man to say, if he ever entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat” (c. 1774)
	CAPTAIN PIPE, HOPOCAN (Delaware) - “Who of us can believe that you can love a people of a different color from your own?” (1781)
	BUCKONGAHELAS (Delaware) - “You see a great and powerful nation dividedi” (1781)
	CORNPLANTER, HALF TOWN and BIG TREE (Seneca) - “The land we live on our fathers received from God” (December 1790)
	UNNAMED WOMEN and RED JACKET (Seneca) - “We are the owners of this land, and it is ours!” (1791)
	UNNAMED (Delaware and twelve other tribes) - “Our only demand is the peaceable possession of a small part of our once great country” (1793)
Part II. - NINETEENTH CENTURY
	RED JACKET, SAGOYEWATHA (Seneca) - “You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us” (1805)
	RED JACKET, SAGOYEWATHA (Seneca) - “We like our religion, and do not want another” (May 1811)
	RED JACKET, SAGOYEWATHA (Seneca) - “We are determined not to sell our lands” (May 1811)
	RED JACKET, SAGOYEWATHA (Seneca) - “I am an aged tree and can stand no longer” (c. 1829)
	BIG ELK, ONGPATONGA (Omaha) - “Death will come, and always comes out of season” (July 1811)
	TECUMSEH (Shawnee) - “Sleep not longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws” (September 1811)
	PUSHMATAHA (Choctaw) - “Listen to the voice of prudence, oh, my countrymen” (September 1811)
	TECUMSEH (Shawnee) - “Let the white race perish” (October 1811)
	TECUMSEH (Shawnee) - “When the white men first set foot on our grounds, they were hungry” (Winter 1811—1812)
	TECUMSEH (Shawnee) - “Father!—Listen to your children!” (September 18, 1813)
	TENKSWATAWA, “THE PROPHET” (Shawnee) - “It is three years since I first began that system of religion which I now practice” (July 1808)
	PUSHMATAHA (Choctaw) - “From its riven trunk leaped a mighty man” (c. 1812)
	BETWEEN THE LOGS (Wyandot) - “Why would you devote yourselves, your women, and your children to destruction?” (c. 1812)
	WILLIAM WEATHERFORD, RED EAGLE (Creek) - “I am in your power—do with me as you please” (April 1814)
	WABASHAW (Sioux) - “A few knives and blankets?” (1815)
	METEA (Potawatomie) - “You are never satisfied!” (August 1821)
	CORNPLANTER (Seneca) - “When I was a child, I played with the butterfly, the grasshopper and the frogs” (February 2, 1822)
	PETALESHARO (Pawnee) - “We have plenty of land, if you will keep your people off of it” (February 4, 1822)
	SPECKLED SNAKE (Cherokee) - “Now he says, ‘The land you live on is not yours’” (c. 1830)
	KEOKUK (Sauk) - “Their soldiers are springing up like grass on the prairies” (1832)
	BLACK HAWK, MAKATAIMESHIEKIAKIAK (Sauk) - “I am going to send you back to your chief, though I ought to kill you” (c. 1832)
	BLACK HAWK, MAKATAIMESHIEKIAKIAK (Sauk) - “Farewell to Black Hawk” (August 27, 1832)
	BLACK HAWK, MAKATAIMESHIEKIAKIAK (Sauk) - “Your houses are as numerous as the leaves upon the trees” (June 4, 1833)
	ARAPOOSH (Crow) - “There is no country like the Crow Country” (1833)
	OSCEOLA (Seminole) - “I love my home, and will not go from it” (October 23, 1834)
	UNNAMED (Blackfoot) - “I was his dog; and not his wife” (1835)
	WILLIAM APES (Pequot) - “Eulogy on King Philip” (January 6, 1836)
	THE FOUR BEARS, MATO TOPE (Mandan) - “To die with my face rotten” (July 30, 1837)
	SEATH‘TL, “SEATTLE” (Duwamish) - “Yonder sky has wept tears of compassion on our fathers” (c. 1854)
	GERONIMO, GOYAHKLA (Chiricahua Apache) - “We will attack them in their homes” (c. 1859)
	LITTLE CROW, TAÓYATEDÚTA (Santee Sioux) - “Taóyatedúta is not a coward, and he is not a fool!” (1862)
	STRUCK BY THE REE (Yankton Sioux) - “If we had been learned all these things we could support ourselves” (August 25—26, 1865)
	RED CLOUD (Oglala Sioux) - “Shall we permit ourselves to be driven to and fro?” (1866)
	RED CLOUD (Oglala Sioux) - “Dakotas, I am for war!” (1866)
	RED CLOUD (Oglala Sioux) - “The Great Spirit made us both” (June 16, 1870)
	SPOTTED TAIL (Brulé Sioux) - “This strange white man—consider him, his gifts are manifold!” (1866)
	SPOTTED TAIL (Brulé Sioux) - “The people that you see before you are not men of a different country, but this is their country” (September 22, 1876)
	SATANTA (Kiowa) - “I love to roam over the prairies” (October 20, 1867)
	BLACKFOOT (Crow) - “They said ‘Yes, yes’; but it is not in the treaty” (August 1873)
	CRAZY HORSE, TASHUNKA WITCO (Oglala Sioux) - “We preferred our own way of living” (September 5, 1877)
	YOUNG JOSEPH, “CHIEF JOSEPH” (Nez Percé) - “I will fight no more forever” (October 5, 1877)
	YOUNG JOSEPH, “CHIEF JOSEPH” (Nez Percé) - “An Indian’s Views of Indian Affairs” (January 1879)
	SITTING BULL, TATANKA YOTANKA (Hunkpapa Sioux) - “Behold, my friends, the spring is come” (1875)
	SITTING BULL, TATANKA YOTANKA (Hunkpapa Sioux) - “You come here to tell us lies, but we don’t want to hear them” (October 17, 1878)
	SITTING BULL, TATANKA YOTANKA (Hunkpapa Sioux) - “The life my people want is a life of freedom” (c. 1882)
	SITTING BULL, TATANKA YOTANKA (Hunkpapa Sioux) - “All of this land belongs to me” (August 21, 1883)
	SITTING BULL, TATANKA YOTANKA (Hunkpapa Sioux) - “What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken?” (n.d.)
	STANDING BEAR (Ponca) - “We lived on our land as long as we can remember” (c. 1880)
	WHITE EAGLE (Ponca) - “We were as grass that is trodden down” (January 1881)
	SHORT BULL, TATANKAPTECELAN (Brulé Sioux) - “We prefer to stay here and die, if necessary, to loss of liberty” (Fall 1890)
	SHORT BULL, TATANKAPTECELAN (Brulé Sioux) - “We must continue the dance” (November 1890)
	KICKING BEAR (Oglala Sioux) - “I bring you word from your fathers, the ghosts, that they are now marching to join you” (1890)
Part III. - TWENTIETH CENTURY
	CELSA APAPAS (Cupa) - “If you give us the best place in the world, it is not so good for us as this” (1901)
	CARLOS MONTEZUMA, WASSAJA (Apache) - “Light on the Indian Situation” (October 5, 1912)
	CHAUNCEY YELLOW ROBE (Sioux) - “The Indian and the Wild West Show” (October 1913)
	DELOS LONEWOLF (Kiowa) - “How to Solve the Problem” (1915)
	JIM BECENTI (Navajo) - “We are starving for education” (January 30, 1947)
	CLYDE WARRIOR (Ponca) - “We are poor in spirit because we are not free” (February 3, 1967)
	DAVID COURCHENE, LEADING THUNDERBIRD (Manitoba Indian Brotherhood) - “We know we can’t turn back the clock” (1969)
	RUSSELL MEANS (Oglala Sioux) - “The spirits of Big Foot and his people are all around us” (1973)
	RUSSELL MEANS (Oglala Sioux) - “We are people who live in the belly of the monster” (September 20, 1977)
	OREN LYONS (Onondaga) - “Sovereignty and the Natural World Economy” (1991)
DOVER · THRIFT · EDITIONS