Indigenous Resilience Quotes

There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?

It's a weird thing. Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten the reservations were meant to be death camps.

The Indians are still winning the battle against the white men, but sooner or later, the white guy will win.

The literate man is a sucker for propaganda...You cannot propagandize a native. You can sell him rum and trinkets, but you cannot sell him ideas.

People say we are survivors but I don't see us as survivors of anything. We are still here, there's nothing that's come and tried to dislodge us. We just go about our business.

I've learned that for Indian people, the opportunity for us to succeed is very slim. So acting was a great tool for that. And in the process of learning about my culture, I've learned how to connect myself again to my ancestors.

They constantly demonstrate their ability to best the White man at his own game in farming, fishing and business. They will work harder, deprive themselves of every comfort and luxury, make beasts of burden of their women, and stick together, making a combination that America cannot defeat.

Why does not the Great Father put his red children on wheels, so he can move them as he will?

Look at native cultures - they've lasted for tens of thousands of years, not doing everything right. We wouldn't want to emulate them in many ways, but their basic philosophies - being a part of nature, a part of a tribe or group without elevating, not what you call dominator philosophies - they lasted for tens of thousands of years. It took us to come and put them asunder.

I have met Aborigines younger than me who used to hide every time anyone official came round their camp for fear of being taken away.