Statements to think about:
"Requerimiento" drawn up, in 1537 by the Spanish court and was to be read to the Native populations by priests who accompanied the conquistadors.
"…we ask and require [that] you …acknowledge the Church as the Ruler and Superior of the whole world and the high priest called pope and in his name the King and Queen …our lords and kings of these islands… But if you do not do so, I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall forcibly enter your country and shall make war against you in all ways and manners that we can, and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church, and of their Highnesses…"
The English had this to say in 1670:
"They are extraordinarily charitable one to another, one having nothing to spare, but he freely imparts it to his friends, and whatever they get by gaming or any other way, they share one to another, leaving themselves commonly the least amount…"
Powhatan, father of Pocahontas asked in 1609:
"Why will you take by force what you may obtain by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war? …We are unarmed, and willing to give you what you ask, if you come in a friendly manner…"
In 1867 General William T. Sherman stated:
"The more [Indians] we can kill this year the less will have to be killed the next war, for the more I see of these Indians, the more convinced I am that they all have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers."
After the Little Big Horn battle Crazy Horse said:
"We had buffalo for food, and their hides for clothing and for our tipis. We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservation, where we were driven against our will. At times we did not get enough to eat, and we were not allowed to leave the reservation to hunt. We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense to the government. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers were sent out in the winter, who destroyed our villages.
The "Long Hair" (Custer) came in the same way. They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same thing to us had we not defended ourselves and fought to the last. Our first impulse was to escape with our women and children, but we were so hemmed in that we had to fight."
Sitting Bull stated the following after he was released from Fort Randall were he was held for 19 months as a prisoner of war:
"White men like to dig in the ground for their food. My people prefer to hunt the buffalo as their fathers did. White men like to stay in one place. My people want to move their tipis here and there to the different hunting grounds. The life of white men is slavery. They are prisoners in towns or farms. The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food that is good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion."
On December 20, 1890 (just nine days before the Massacre of Wounded Knee occurred) L. Frank Baum, creator of the "Wizard of Oz" wrote in an editorial in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer:
"Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they should die than live the miserable wretches they are…the whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent."
The significant of the date and statement showed that even after we were placed on the reservations and were completely dependent upon the federal government for our very survival some Euro-Americans still wanted us destroyed.
The question I ask today is – Has this changed?
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