Sitting Bull

I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief.

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.

In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly.

There are things they tell us that sound good to hear, but when they have accomplished their purpose they will go home and will not try to fulfill our agreements with them.

I was very sorry when I found out that your intentions were good and not what I supposed they were.

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?

God made me an Indian.

Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps.

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?

Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.

He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart, he put other different desires.

What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.

Every seed is awakened, and all animal life.

Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also.

They want us to give up another chunk of our tribal land. This is not the first time or the last time.

Therefore, I do not wish to consider any proposition to cede any portion of our tribal holdings to the Great Father.

If I agree to dispose of any part of our land to the white people I would feel guilty of taking food away from our children's mouths, and I do not wish to be that mean.

What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one.

Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit.

If we must die, we die defending our rights.

You think I am a fool, but you are a greater fool than I am.

They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse.

The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.

If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man, he would have made me so in the first place.

I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle.