Native American Genocide Quotes

“Stolen bodies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

“I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered.”
― Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks

“. . . [H]ad North America been a wilderness, undeveloped, without roads, and uncultivated, it might still be so, for the European colonists could not have survived. They appropriated what had already been created by Indigenous civilizations. They stole already cultivated farmland and the corn, vegetables, tobacco, and other crops domesticated over centuries, took control of the deer parks that had been cleared and maintained by Indigenous communities, used existing roads and water routes in order to move armies to conquer, and relied on captured Indigenous people to identify the locations of water, oyster beds, and medicinal herbs.”
― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

“Under the crust of that portion of Earth called the United States of America—"from California . . . to the Gulf Stream waters"—are interred the bones, villages, fields, and sacred objects of American Indians. They cry out for their stories to be heard through their descendants who carry the memories of how the country was founded and how it came to be as it is today. [opening lines of the Introduction; ellipsis sic].”
― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

“There's a type of despair that is unique to those who are exiled on their own lands. When you are taken from your home and transported to a different place you can hold the dream of home in your heart. But, when your home is taken and you are hunted and killed on your own land, there is no home for you to dream about.”
― Sherri Mitchell Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset

“Do my brothers know the name of this favored people?”
“It was the Lenni Lenape,” returned Magua, affecting to bend his head in reverence to their former greatness.
“It was the tribes of the Lenape! The sun rose from water that was salt, and set in water that was sweet, and never hid himself from their eyes. But why should I, a Huron of the woods, tell a wise people their own traditions? Why remind them of their injuries; their ancient greatness; their deeds; their glory; their happiness; their losses; their defeats; their misery? Is there not one among them who has seen it all, and who knows it to be true? I have done. My tongue is still for my heart is of lead.
I listen.”
― James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

“Of a thousand Red Stick and allied insurgents, eight hundred were killed. [Andrew] Jackson lost forty-nine men.”
― Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

“Now, let me preface this story with the following: If you think that I am in any way endorsing cultural appropriation by writing this, you should just stop reading. I swear to Goddess,* if I hear about any one of you reading this passage and deciding, “Okay, yeah, great, the moral of this story is that Jacob thinks it’s awesome for white people to dress up as Native Americans for Halloween, so I’m gonna go do that,” I will use the power of the internet to find out where you live and throw so many eggs at your house that it becomes a giant omelet. Or if you’re vegan, I will throw so much tofu at your house that it becomes a giant tofu scramble. The point of this passage is not that white people should dress their children as Native Americans for Halloween. That’s basically the opposite of the point here. Capisce? All that being said, it was 1997. I was six years old and hadn’t quite developed my political consciousness about cultural appropriation or the colonization of the Americas and subsequent genocide of Native American people at the hands of white settlers yet. I also didn’t know multiplication, so I had some stuff to work on. What I did know was that Pocahontas was, by far, the most badass Disney princess. Keep in mind that Disney’s transgender-butch-lesbian masterpiece Mulan wasn’t released until a year later, or else I would’ve obviously gone with that (equally problematic) costume.”
― Jacob Tobia, Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

“In a more perfect world, that would’ve also been the moment when she’d say, “Look, honey, I know you resonate with the character of Pocahontas, but we already live on stolen land and you are not an indigenous person, so it would be very insensitive for you to wear someone else’s culture as a costume.” “Certainly, Mother,” I’d respond. “You’re absolutely correct. My teacher taught us about the land theft and subsequent genocide of Native American nations in kindergarten last week as part of our People’s Herstory class, so I shouldn’t go as Pocahontas. But could I go as another Disney princess instead?”
― Jacob Tobia, Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

“I surveyed the country that had cost us so much trouble, anxiety and blood, and that now caused me to be a prisoner of war. I reflected upon the ingratitude of the whites when I saw their fine houses, rich harvests and everything desirable around them; and
recollected that all this land had been ours, for which I and my people had never received a dollar, and that the whites were not satisfied until they took our village and our graveyards from us and removed us
across the Mississippi.”
― Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Black Hawk)

“Here in the United States, very little effort has been made to voice formal apologies, make reparations, or pass political mandates about education. Yet this country was founded in part by genocidal policies directed at Native Americans and the enslavement of Black people. Both of these things are morally repugnant. Still I love my country. In fact, it is because I love my country that I want to make sure the mistakes of our past do not get repeated. We cannot afford to cover over the dark chapters of our history, as we have for decades upon decades. It is time for that to stop.”
― Anton Treuer, Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Young Readers Edition

“Between 1492 and the American Revolution, the indigenous population in North America declined by 90%. In 1491 Native people controlled all of the 2.4 billion acres that would become the United States of America. Native Americans now control about 56 million acres, roughly 2 percent.
America's Existential Crisis: Our Inherited Obligations to Native Nations.”
― Jeff Rasley, America’s Existential Crisis: Our Inherited Obligation to Native Nations

“By Amherst’s direction, hostile Indian tribes were provided with blankets contaminated with smallpox: “Could it not be contrived to send the smallpox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must, on this occasion, use every stratagem in our power to reduce them” (14).”
― Michael B.A. Oldstone, Viruses, Plagues, and History

“Ainda é preciso dizer? O Brasil foi fundado sobre um cemitério indígena. Todo dia é alguém que some, mano.”
― Bruno Ribeiro, Porco de Raça

“Nothing about the the birth of America is great - America is a terrorist nation, built by terrorists who invaded other people's land, stripped them of their homes, and built a spin-off of the ruthless British empire over their blood and bones.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth

“The pilgrims were not pioneers, they were terrorists.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth