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43wolves:

Cochise, Chiricahua Apache

From the Chiricahua Apache website, here are the words of Cochise:

“When I was young I walked all over this country, east and west, and saw no other 

 people than the Apaches. After many summers I walked again and found another race of 

 people had come to take it. How is it?

We were once a large people covering these mountains. We lived well: we were at

 peace. One day my best friend was seized by an officer of the white men andtreacherously killed. At last your soldiers did me a very great wrong, and I and my

 people went to war with them.

The worst place of all is Apache Pass. There my brother and nephews were murdered.

Their bodies were hung up and kept there till they were skeletons.

 Now Americans and Mexicans kill an Apache on sight. I have retaliated with all my

might. My people have killed Americans and Mexicans and taken their property. Their 

losses have been greater than mine. I have killed ten white men for every Indian slain,

 but I know that the whites are many and the Indians are few. Apaches are growing less

every day.

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Why is it that the Apaches wait to die… . . That they carry their lives on their 

fingernails? They roam over the hills and plains and want the heavens to fall on them.

The Apaches were once a great nation; they are now but few, and because of this they

want to die and so carry their lives on their fingernails.

I am alone in the world. I want to live in these mountains; I do not want to go toTularosa. That is a long way off. I have drunk of the waters of the Dragoon Mountains

and they have cooled me: I do not want to leave here.

 Nobody wants peace more than I do. Why shut me up on a reservation? We will make

 peace; we will keep it faithfully. But let us go around free as Americans do. Let us go

wherever we please.

It is my land, my home, my fathers’ land, to which I now ask to be allowed to return. I

want to spend my last days there, and be buried among those mountains. If this could be

I might die in peace, feeling that my people, placed in their native homes, would

increase in numbers, rather than diminish as at present, and that our name would not become extinct.

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todaysdocument:

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

Following the Battle of Bear Paw, ”non-treaty” groups of the Nez Perce surrendered tothe United States Army on October 5, 1877, ending the Nez Perce War. While not the

sole leader of the Nez Perce, Joseph emerged as one of the more outspoken and

compelling figures in the conflict and during the Nez Perce’s later struggles following

their removal from their ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest.

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thirtymilesout:

Chief Aupumut Mohican 1725

“When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filledwith the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and

pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a

different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going

home.”