Indian Tribes Quotes

• The United States have fulfilled in good faith all their treaty stipulations with the Indian tribes, and have in every other instance insisted upon a like performance of their obligations.

  Martin Van Buren

  United States, Tribes, Stipulations

  United States. President (1837-1841 : Van Buren), Martin Van Buren (1838). “Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress: At the Commencement of the Third Session of the Twenty-fifth Congress”, p.18

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• Infectious diseases introduced with Europeans, like smallpox and measles, spread from one Indian tribe to another, far in advance of Europeans themselves, and killed an estimated 95% of the New World's Indian population.

  Jared Diamond

  Literature, World, Disease

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• Land of opportunity, land for the huddled masses where would the opportunity have been without the genocide of those Old Guard, bristling Indian tribes?

  Edward Hoagland

  Opportunity, Land, Tribes

  Edward Hoagland (2014). “On Nature: Selected Essays”, p.100, Rowman & Littlefield

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• From several of the Indian tribes inhabiting the country bordering on Lake Erie purchases have been made of lands on conditions very favorable to the United States, and, as it is presumed, not less so to the tribes themselves.

  James Monroe

  Country, Lakes, Land

  James Monroe (199?). “The Writings of James Monroe: 1817-1823”

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• Too often, Indian tribes are at the mercy of the shifting political winds of State government.

  Jim Costa

  Government, Wind, Political

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• What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.

  Crowfoot

  Life, Change, Death

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• The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time? Matter, that thing the most solid and the well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world?

  Jeanette Winterson

  Past, Reality, Light

  Jeanette Winterson (2007). “Sexing the Cherry”, p.9, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I'm so sick and tired of hearing about slavery. You think slavery didn't exist in Africa? Even Indian tribes.

  David Duke

  Tired, Thinking, Sick

  Source: radio.foxnews.com

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• Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun. Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes, our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us? I know you will cry with me, 'Never! Never!'

  Tecumseh

  Summer, Country, Giving Up

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• [last words] What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

  Crowfoot

  Sunset, Native American, Firefly

  "Aging in the Modern World: Selections from the Literature of Aging for Pleasure and Instruction". Book by ‎Clark Tibbitts, p. 222, 1957.

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• Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

  Tecumseh

  Inspirational, Appreciation, Fear

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

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• Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

  Tecumseh

  Love You, Native American, Perfect

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

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• Children must early learn the the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving.

  Charles Alexander Eastman

  Life, Children, Native American

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• Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pcanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before the summer sun.

  Tecumseh

  Summer, Powerful, Native American

  Quoted in Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970)

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• President Obama met with leaders of the American Indian tribes and they honored the president by giving him his own Indian name: Running Deficits.

  Jay Leno

  Running, Names, Giving

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• Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

  Tecumseh

  Death, Song, Hero

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

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• The matriarchal society is thus the decadent and broken. The strongly matriarchal character of Negro life is due to the moral failure of Negro men, their failure to be responsible, to support the family, or to provide authority. The same is true of American Indian tribes which are also matriarchal today.

  R.J. Rushdoony

  Character, Men, Broken

  "The Institutes of Biblical Law" by R.J. Rushdoony, (p. 203), 1973.

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• No contact with savage Indian tribes has ever daunted me more than the morning I spent with an old lady swathed in woolies who compared herself to a rotten herring encased in a block of ice.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Morning, Block, Ice

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• For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Regulation, Tribes, Doe

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.524

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• This government to government relationship is the result of sovereign and independent tribal governments being incorporated into the fabric of our Nation, of Indian tribes becoming what our courts have come to refer to as quasi-sovereign domestic dependent nations. Over the years the relationship has flourished, grown, and evolved into a vibrant partnership in which over 500 tribal governments stand shoulder to shoulder with the other governmental units that form our Republic.

  George H. W. Bush

  Independent, Years, Government

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• Let us rededicate ourselves to the principle that all Americans have the tools to make the most of their God-given potential. For Indian tribes and tribal members, this means that the authority of tribal governments must be accorded the respect and support to which they are entitled under the law. It means that American Indian children and youth must be provided a solid education and the opportunity to go on to college. It means that more must be done to stimulate tribal economies, create jobs, and increase economic opportunities.

  William J. Clinton

  Jobs, Children, Mean

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• We know that this nation entered into solemn treaties [with Indian tribes] which have been continuously violated for more than 250 years. It's a disgrace. It's an outrage. We must do everything in our power to keep those treaties. Otherwise, the word of the United States government is no good.

  John McCain

  Years, Government, Tribes

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• It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our people.

  Andrew Jackson

  Rights, Government, People

  John Stilwell Jenkins, Andrew Jackson (2011). “Life and Public Services of Gen. Andrew Jackson, Seventh President of the United States: Including the Most Important of His State Papers”, p.221, New Leaf Publishing Group

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• So what? A lobbyist cheated Indian tribes out of $25 million then laundered their money through phony Christian charities trying to stop other Indian tribes from getting casinos [on screen: 'Thou Shalt Not Compete'] and bribe congressmen in the process. Know what I call that? I call that business as usual in Washington. [on screen: 'Screwing Indians']

  Stephen Colbert

  Christian, Trying, Charity

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