Standing Bear Quotes

Who came to this country first—the white man, didn’t he? That’s who made this country great.

The white man expelled the Indian, took his possessions, developed the unexplored resources, and now he devotes a portion of his accumulations to establish institutions where the red man learn the secret and method of his power.

I once thought that I was the only man who persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard for me to believe the white man anymore.

No one who knew the true nature of the Indian felt any regret that they were driven off their hunting grounds. This attitude was found wherever the Whites came in conflict with them and explains why they were scarcely regarded as human beings.

Plans are all based on the assumption that the land belongs to the white man and that the native was designed to be the settler’s servant.

I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.

The white people … are trying to make us over into their image

They are like any other class of people. They like to defend their rights. I think the Indians have been more sinned against than they have sinned.

The pressure that has been brought to bear upon the native people, since the cessation of armed conflict, in the attempt to force conformity of custom and habit has caused a reaction more destructive than war, and the injury has not only affected the Indian, but has extended to the white population as well.

The only good Indian is a dead Indian.

I said there was nothing so convincing to an Indian as a general massacre. … I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap and education. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run; because a half-massacred Indian may recover, but if you educate him and wash him, it is bound to finish him some time or other.

Australians have made a lot of mistakes, we have treated Aboriginal people very badly, and we have our share of racists and bigots.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand have apologised for their treatment of native peoples.

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 disapprove... of the proposal to subject the Indians to our laws without their consent,... It is so little in concord with our principles of government.

White domination is so complete that even American Indian children want to be cowboys. It's as if Jewish children wanted to play Nazis.

WHITE man’s government ... should not be scoffed at; that it is a prejudice in the country that no man has a right to disregard

We have crowded the tribes upon a few miserable acres on our Southern frontier; it is all that is left to them of their once boundless forest: and still, like the horse-leech, our insatiated cupidity cries, Give! Give! ... Do the obligations of justice change with the color of the skin?

The hostility to all Indian ways and culture that characterized so much of Government policy now appears to have been a mistake.

The United States has always had little sympathy for the native and has always seen settlements as a positive and civilizing force….they saw the native as a squatter with no rights.

This war was brought upon us by the children of the Great Father who came to take our land from us without price.

We eat the white man’s food, and it makes us soft: we wear the white man’s heavy clothing and it makes us weak…Yes – we know when you come, we die

Tyranny, Stupidity, and lack of vision have brought about the situation now alluded to as the Indian problem.

dominating populations suppress the history of their victims, destroy the practice of the culture of their victims, prevent the victims from coming to understand themselves as a part of a cultural family, teach systematically the ideology of white supremacy, control the socialization process, control the accumulation of wealth, and perform segregation and apartheid.

I am one of the forgotten (in this land), one of the faceless ones, a Native American. I am One from whom this Land was stolen through the use of Deceit, through Lies, through Ravage, through Rape, through Pillage. I am one of those who knows the degradation continues...