Deb Haaland Quotes

The proper treatment of the original occupants of this land—the Indians is one deserving of careful study. I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.

And Americans realized that native people are still here, that they have a moral standing, a legal standing.

If anyone can say 'go back,' it's Native Americans. My Pueblo ancestors, despite being targeted at every juncture - despite facing famine and drought - still inhabit this country today. But indigenous people aren't asking anyone to go back to where they came from.

In the end, there is no absence of irony: the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American cultures.

The Americans are not created by the master of life. … I will ask the master of life to cover over the Americans with earth and the Indians shall return to the Earth.

I would rather die as an Indian than live as a white man.

I have, for many years past, contemplated the noble races of red men who are now spread over these trackless forests and boundless prairies, melting away at the approach of civilization. Their rights invaded, their morals corrupted, their lands wrested from them, their customs changed, and therefore lost to the world; and they at last sunk into the earth, and the ploughshare turning the sod over their graves, and I have flown to their rescue--not of their lives or of their race (for they are "doomed" and must perish), but to the rescue of their looks and their modes, at which the acquisitive world may hurl their poison and every besom of destruction, and trample them down and crush them to death

I hope that I am helping to create an understanding and an awareness of what happened to the Aboriginal people.

What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of Europe.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

I'm a member of the American Indian Movement, and I'm from the indigenous nations of the Western Hemisphere.

We must not try to force him to take civilization immediately in its complete form, but under just laws, guaranteeing to Indians equal civil laws, the Indian question, a source of such dishonor to our country and of shame to true patriots, will soon be a thing of the past.

…the native races, whose land it was long before we came here

This land was our land; it was taken from us illegally …. John Smith did not bring a civilization here. There was already civilization here…. We should have burned the boat and killed them. all.

Convinced of its soundness, I feel it consistent with pure morality to lead the Indians towards becoming citizens, to familiarize them to the idea that it is for their interest to cede lands at times to the United States, and for us to procure gratifications to our citizens from time to time by new acquisitions of land

No acid ever worked more mechanically on a vegetable fiber than the white man acted on the Indian. As the line of American settlements approached, the nearest Indian tribes withered away.

Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement.

Whose voice was first sounded on this land? The voice of the red people who had but bows and arrows... When the white man comes in my country he leaves a trail of blood behind him... I have two mountains in that country... I want the Great Father to make no roads through them.

The Indian race has reached a crisis in its history.

Native Americans have faced centuries of atrocities to their people, their land, and their culture - all under various presidents who took an oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The fighting back by indigenous people started in 1900: OK, they've cornered us. Our population is almost gone; they've defeated us. From there, the modern Indian rights movement started, and it was a very hard fight, with a lot of stuff going against them.

I think the Conservative Party has a great story to tell when it comes to relationships with First Nations. I want to be part of the solution-identifying process, talking about, 'What are the practical things that we can achieve that the Conservatives can offer?'

Canada has some very, very dark histories, from internments to turning away the St. Louis and the Komagata Maru, but none is darker than our abject failure to respect rights, the spirit and intent of the original treaties with First Nations, Métis Nation, and Inuit peoples. We have to transform that relationship.

The Mohawks have on all occasions shown their zeal and loyalty to the Great King; yet they have been very badly treated by his people.

Looking at the purpose of our government toward the Indians, we find that after subjugating them it has been our policy to collect the different tribes on reservations and support them at the expense of our people.