God made me an Indian.
It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.
When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?
What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.
Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them.
Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father.
I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle.
Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?
What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one.
What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?
