If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian...we can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike.... give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who is born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. Let me be a free man...free to travel... free to stop...free to work...free to choose my own teachers...free to follow the religion of my Fathers...free to think and talk and act for myself."
Chief Joseph Nez Perce
You see this barren waste......Think of it! I,who used to own rich soil in a well watered country so extensive that i could not ride through it in a week on my fastest pony,am put down here!!! Why,I have to go five miles for wood for my fire.Washington took our lands and promised to feed and support us.Now I, who used to control 5,000 warriors, must tell washington when i am hungry. I must beg for that i which i own. If i beg hard, they put me in the gaurd-house. We have trouble. Our girls are getting bad. Coughing sickness every winter carries away our best people. My heart is heavy. I am old, I cannot do much more.....
Red Cloud as a old man, recorded by Warren K Morrhead