People

     The story of the United States of America, how it came into existence, and what transpired on American soil during the new republic's turbulent first century, is a story animated by characters as colorful and wild as the country itself. America's story, our story, is rich with cowboys and Indians, aristocrats and common folks, legendary orators and egoistic geniuses, and immigrants and emigrants. In one way or another, they all joined together in a determined and heroic effort to bring a 'new world order' to this continent, or to stop that 'new world order' in its tracks.

"In my book, a pioneers is a man who turned all the grass upside down, strung bob-wire over the dust that was left, poisoned the water, cut down the trees, killed the Indians who owed the land, and called it progress." Charles M. Russellwestern artist
"The white man does not understand the Indian for the reason that he does not understand America. The roots of the tree of his life have not grasped the rock and the soil. He is still troubled with primitive fears. Men must be formed of the dust of their forefather's bones." Standing BearOglala
"I have lived on this frontier 50 years, and I have never yet known an instance in which war broke out between these tribes that the tribes were not in the right." General William S. Harney
"White men - whiskey - tomahawks - scalping knives - guns, powder and ball - small-pox - debauchery - extermination." George Catlinartist
"...you are taking my land from me| you are killing off our game so it is hard for us to live. Now you tell us to work for a living. Again you ask, why do you not become civilized? We do not want your civilization! We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them." Crazy HorseOglala
"Lots of us out there worked hard at the art of forgetting...it was a route toward excusing irresponsibility." William Kittredgeauthor
"You speak by papers and record your words in books. We speak from our hearts, and memory writes our words on the hearts of our people." Grizzly BearMenominee
"Tell them at Washington if they can find one man mong them who speaks the truth, to send him to me, and I will listen." Sitting BullHunkpapa
"Chimney corner patriots abound| venality, corruption, prostitution of office for selfish ends, abuse of trust, perversions of funds from a national to a private use, and speculations upon the necessities of the times, pervade all interests." George Washingtonon the American character
"The European is to other races of men what man in general is to animate nature. When he cannot bend them to his use or make them serve his self-interests, he destroys them and makes them vanish little by little before him." Alexis de TocquevilleDemocracy In America
"When the last red man shall have perished from the earth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe. Your children's children will not be alone. Let the white man be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not altogether powerless." Chief SeealthDuwamish
"The heavens and earth are my heart. The rising sun is my mouth. My lips dare not lie to you. Do not deceive us. Be strong and preserve your word inviolate. I am old, but I shall never die. I shall always live in my children, and my children's children." New CornPotawatomi
"In America, the perpetrator of a crime never forgives his victim." John RossCherokee
"We saw that the white man did not take his religions any more seriously than he did his laws...these were not our ways. We kept the laws we made and lived our religion. We have never understood the white man, who fools no one but himself." Plenty CoupsCrow
"Kill and lay waste to everything pertaining to the tribes. Whenever found - no trials, but at arms, no prisoners, no red tape." Humbolt County Registereditorial
"The real epic of America is the yet unwritten story of the Americanization of the white man, the transformation of the hungry, fear ridden, intolerant and greedy men that came to these shores with Columbus, Pizarro and John Smith, into people of tolerance and diversity." Felix Cohenlawyer,author,solicitor
"Common property and civilization cannot coexist." Thomas Hartley CrawfordIndian Commissioner,1838-1845
"The Indians being the prior occupants possess the right to the soil. It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent, or by the right of conquest in the case of a just war." Henry KnoxSecretary of War
"For four and a half centuries, Europeans have been trying to stop Indians from behaving in un-European ways." Felix Cohenlawyer,author,solicitor
"I must own to you that the daring traits of ambition and intrigue, and those unbridled rivalries which have already appeared, are the most melancholy and alarming systems that I have ever seen in this country." John Adamspresident
"Thomas Jefferson is among those 'pretenders to profound knowledge' who are ignorant of the most useful of all sciences - the science of human nature. The day will soon come when Mister Jefferson is revealed to be a voluptuary and an intriguing incendiary." Alexander Hamiltongenius
"What shall be done about the Indian as an obstacle to the progress of settlement and industry? They must yield or perish because they are altogether barbarous and incompatible with civilization." Amasa WalkerIndian Commissioner,1872
"Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots." John Adamspresident
"Why is it so important for the Indian to be brought nto the mainstream of American life? What, after all, is the mainstream of American life?" Earl Old PersonBlackfeet
"Never once, in all of the campaigns of Europe with three million Americans under my command, did I ever have occasion to hear a complaint about the conduct of a North American Indian." Dwight Eisenhowergeneral,president
"I fear...that those have truth on their side who say that man is incapable of governing himself." John Marshallon the common man
"The system of injustice, oppression, and robbery which the government calls Indian Policy has covered it with disgrace and earned the contempt of all honest men." Wendell Phillips
"'Beware the spare Cassium,' has always occurred to me when I have seen that cock sparrow. Oh, I have read his heart in his wicked eyes many a time. The very devil is in them. They are lasciviousness itself..." Abigail Adamson Thomas Jefferson
"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint." Alexander Hamilton
"The simplistic diplomatic model Lewis and Clark brought with them sought to reduce the highly complex social and economic structure of inter-tribal relations...into one of child-like servility to the great white fathers in Washington." James Rondahistorian,author
"Had there been no Indian, there could have been no frontier, no wars, no pillage, no adventure, just a mob of lusterless clodhoppers slowly moving into the empty wilds a little farther each season." Stanley Vestelauthor
"If you remove the Indian from the dominant American narrative, and the African American, and the Chinaman, and the Mexican, what do you have left? Not much. But every one of these groups was denied the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by the society that wrote the history of this land." Paul VanDevelderauthor
"Every expansion of a great civilized power means a victory for law, order, and righteousness. It is only the warlike powers of a civilized people that can give peace to the world, and by which their expansion...gradually brings peace to the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of this world hold sway." Theodore Rooseveltpresident
"God has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to lead the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man." Senator Albert Beveridgepolitician
"Understand me fully and my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I chose. The one who has the right to dispose of it is the one who has created it. I claim a right to live on my land, and accord you the privilege to live on yours." Chief JosephNez Perce
"An eastern tourist stopped his car and hailed an Indian policeman at an agency rodeo. 'Will it be safe to leave my car here?' he asked. The Indian looked gravely up and down the road. 'I guess so,' he said, 'I don't see any white men around.'" eastern tourist
"The real headwaters of the public trust doctrine arise in rivulets from all reaches of the basin that holds the societies of the world. And as the world has understood since time immemorial, a government that fails to protect its natural resources sentences its people to misery." Charles Wilkinsonlaw scholar,author
"It makes little difference where one opens the record of the history of the Indians| every page and every year has its dark stain." Helen Hunt Jacksonauthor
"Knavery seems to be so much the striking feature of the Americans that it may not in the end be an evil that they become aliens to this kingdom." King George III
"Later that most famous summer of 1776, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, making literature of Mason's somewhat desultory laundry list, consisting of John Locke's garments." Gore Vidalon Thomas Jefferson's plagiarisms
"The American character was fully exhibited on the Oregon Trail. All who traveled down it appeared to be determined to govern - but none to be governed." L.W. Hastingshistorian
"The Founder's came forth with the great American formula for democracy: socialism for the rich, free-enterprise for the poor." Gore Vidalhistorian,author
"Avarice and ambition are strong passions and, separately, act with great force on the human mind but when both are united...,their violence is almost irresistible, and they hurry men headlong into factions and contentions, destructive of all good government." Benjamin Franklinon the American character
"Of course when it came to the higher arts of hypocrisy no Adams could ever outmatch the lord of Monticello." Gore Vidalauthor,historian
"The lesson of American history is the wicked and the strong always find plenty of pretexts to oppress the innocent and the weak, and when they lack good reasons they have recourse to likes and calumnies." Father Jean Pierre deSmetJesuit missionary
"The tragedy [of the American story] is that white Americans - whether their philanthropic impulse came from Christian sentiment or from social science - have never been willing to accept a pluralistic society." Paul Pruchascholar,historian
"To enforce upon the Indians the observance of justice, it is indispensable that there shall be competent means of rendering justice to them." George Washingtonpresident
"So long as a tribe exists and remains in possession of its lands, its title and possession are sovereign and exclusive, and there exists no authority to enter upon their lands for nay purpose whatever, without their consent." William WirtUnited States attorney general
" An Indian reservation is a parcel of land set aside for the exclusive use of Indians, surrounded by thieves. " General Wm. Tecumseh Sherman