Indigenous Leadership Quotes

Independent India's leaders will neither use a foreign language nor rule from a remote place.

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them.

The chiefs of Fiji have relevance for all our citizens not just the Fijians, they still represent stability, order and continuity. If the chiefs were diminished, the entire nation would be weakened and be vulnerable.

My great-grandfather was the last ruler of the Choctaw Nation, and from birth, I was taught that my role was to restore the power and the glory to my bloodline.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called 'least advanced' people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

The federal government needs to make it clear that recognition of Indigenous rights means that when Indigenous bands and their leadership approve projects, we listen.

My stiffest earthly assignment is ended and my major life's work is done. My country is now free and I have been honoured to be its first indigenous head of state. What more could one desire in life?

A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,--the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man's treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.

Let us keep clear of interfering with their [Egypt’s] internal affairs; let us leave reforms to them and their peoples.

I tell the story of eight forgotten founders, people like Canassatego, an Iroquois Indian Chief, who taught Benjamin Franklin about federalism, about the idea that you can form a confederacy in which the central power has only limited powers and local control is retained.

I remember saying to the chairman after serving the first year, 'Why are we doing this? Why don't the Hawaiians have control?' 'Well, we have no mechanism to do it,' I was told.

We did not expect to conquer the whites. I took up the hatchet to revenge the injuries which my people could no longer endure. Had I borne them without striking, my people would have said - "Black Hawk is a woman; he is too old to be a chief; he is no Sauk.

For eight years, I've served on the Indian Affairs committee, two years as the ranking member. I've been on that committee since Day One. I will stay on the committee for as long as I'm in the Senate because of my commitment to making a difference for Alaska Natives.

In 2006, I entered the presidential palace in the main square of La Paz as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Our government, under the slogan 'Bolivia Changes,' is committed to ending the colonialism, racism and exclusion that many of our people lived under for many centuries.

Prior to my election, young Cherokee girls would never have thought that they might grow up and become chief.

There are good reasons to push for more Indigenous Labor MPs, not just on equity but also for what they can contribute to Labor.

I didn't have any Indigenous friends until I was in my 30s, and I'll always remember and be inspired by the remarkable friendship I had with Connie Bush, an outstanding Indigenous leader from Groot Eylandt on who was on the National Women's Advisory Council with me.

The surest means of securing good behavior from this conspicuous personage [Tecumseh, 1768-1813] and his brother [the Prophet], would be to make them prisoners, but at this time … it is desirable that peace with all the Indian tribes should be preserved …

I wanted in my lifetime to vote for a radical Native American woman, since my vision of any future that we might have is that it will be led by women and older women.

I have never declared myself an Indigenous politician; I am not an Indigenous Chief Minister.

By and large we have got to find the good leaders to work with to make sure that we build the strength in these communities. Simply issuing edicts from Canberra isn't going to solve issues on the APY lands.