"Sometimes I go about pitying myself
And all the while I am being carried across the sky
By beautiful clouds."

---- Ojibway Poem

"Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the Earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.
If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know .... the Earth does not belong to man ..... man belongs to the Earth. This we know."

---- Chief Seattle

HOLD ON

"Hold on to what is good,
Even if it's a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe,
Even if it's a tree that stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do,
Even if it's a long way from here.
Hold on to your life,
Even if it's easier to let go.
Hold on to my hand,
Even if someday I'll be gone away from you."

---- Pueblo Indian Prayer

"What is life? It is a flash of a firefly in the night.
It is a breath of a buffalo in the winter time.
It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

---- Crowfoot / Blackfoot Tribal Chief

"When you know who you are;
when your mission is clear and you
burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will;
no cold can touch your heart;
no deluge can dampen your purpose.
You know that you are alive."

---- Chief Seattle

"Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light.
Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.
And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured.., the fault is in yourself."

---- Chief Tecumseh / Shawnee Indian Chief

"In our every deliberation,
we must consider the impact of our decisions
on the next seven generations."

---- Iroquois Confederacy Maxim

"You... whose day this is,
make it BEAUTIFUL.
Get out your rainbow colors,
that it may be beautiful."

---- Nekoosa Indian Poem

"Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights."

---- Sitting Bull / Lakota Sioux

"There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say."

---- Geronimo (Goyathlay) / Chiricahua Apache

"I love this land and the buffalo and will not part with it…I have heard you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die.

A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting."

---- White Bear (Satanta) / Kiowa Chief

"The White Man goes into his church and talks about Jesus.
The Indian goes into his tipi and talks with Jesus."

---- Quanah / Comanche Chief

"You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight into our hearts.
Speak Americans.. I will not lie to you; do not lie to me."

---- Cochise ("Hardwood"..., in Chiracahua Apache) / (b. 1812, d. June 8, 1874)

""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?"

---- Cochise

"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 and treacherously 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."

---- Cochise

"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 to Tularosa. 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."

---- Cochise

TREATY WITH NO PAPER

There was, in 1872, an assignment, which would place Oliver Howard back in the field and away from the headache of Washington politics. The government needed Howard to help negotiate a peace treaty with the warring Apache Indians under Cochise in the Arizona desert. Howard accepted the task and on March 7, 1872, he left Washington for Arizona.

All hell had broken loose in the desert. The story was a common one. Settlers had been pushing westwards in search of a better life- for some that meant gold and for others that meant a ranch or land- when they encountered Native Americans, who had been living on the land for centuries. Both sides became violent and soon a war was on. This time it was on courtesy of Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches and General George Crook, a hard fighting Civil War veteran who subscribed to General Phil Sheridan’s maxim: the only good Indian is a dead one.

In a last ditch effort to prevent a war, the government sent Howard west to try to calm things down. Arriving at Fort McDowell, Howard met with General Crook and persuaded him to halt his campaign until Howard had tried his hand at peace negotiations. Howard’s efforts soon brought peace with a number of tribes including members of the Apache, Papago and Pima. Howard’s visit to different tribes and efforts to create a new reservation, in which the Indians could be happily settled, helped smooth things out considerably. With his new friends, Howard returned to Washington in June 1872. Still, a major portion of his assignment had been left unaccomplished. Cochise was still on the rampage and in May Howard gave up hope of finding him. He ordered Crook to begin his war again Cochise. This was music to General Crook’s ears. However, President Grant didn’t like the idea very much and as soon as Howard reached Washington, the President sent him back to Arizona at once.

Howard returned and began his search for Cochise yet again. This time, however, he had the aid of a “scout” named Thomas Jeffords. Howard assured Jeffords that he meant no harm to Cochise and was willing to travel anywhere to find him, with or without military escort. This being said, a strange cast was assembled in the desert. Howard, the scout, and two Native American guides rode into the heart of Cochise’s territory. The general was going out on a limb, knowing full well what became of intruders who displeased the Apache Chief. Still, he went along in search of peace.

It must have been an interesting sight to see. Two Indians, a rugged cowboy type scout, and a major general in the United States Army crossing the desert in search of a legend and in a quest to prevent bloodshed. This was the stuff of great Western adventure movies, minus, of course, the gunfights.

In late summer, 1872, Howard was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by thousands of hostile Indians, without an escort, and with no escape plan whatsoever. His willingness to come thus far must have proved his worth to Chief Cochise who soon came to a satisfactory agreement with Howard. A new reservation was carved out on the Mexican border and the Apache promised peace. A slight flaw in his agreement is that there was no paper treaty and in time misunderstandings of the terms of the treaty would cause some trouble for General Crook, but in the meantime, Howard had accomplished his mission and was heading home.

The people of Arizona did not especially enjoy his return from the desert, however. They wanted blood and kept demanding that Crook go in with guns blazing and sabers drawn. Controversy would arise in the years following the agreement as Indian raids into the Mexican border, and Cochise’s claims of immunity from U.S. military control made the settlers fear for their livelihood.

Meanwhile, Oliver Howard was in the Department of Columbia, commanding the Washington Territory, Alaska, Oregon, and Idaho. It was 1874 and there was peace throughout his department.

In 1872 (after increased pressure from both the Mexican and U.S. military to suppress the Apaches) Apache chief, Cochise, signed a treaty with the U.S. Government. This treaty would place the Apaches on an Arizona reservation leaving only small bands of Apache raiders to defend their territory. The Apache raiders were led by Chief Geronimo, who was considered the last great chief of the Apache nation. He and his raiders, terrorized the Southwest until they were finally captured in 1886. Geronimo’s capture signified the end of the Apache people as a viable warrior culture. The Apache people were moved three more times to Florida, Alabama, and the Oklahoma territory. They are fittingly recognized as the last Indian nation to be placed on a reservation.

---- Naiche (son of Cochise)

"The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like the white men - go to farming, work hard and do as they did - and the Indians did not know how to do that, and did not want to anyway.

If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same with many Indians."

---- Wamditanka (Big Eagle) / Santee Sioux

"The Great Spirit is in all things: he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the earth is our mother. She nourishes us..
That which we put into the ground, she returns to us."

- Big Thunder (Bedagi) / Wabanaki Algonquin

"Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking."

---- Black Elk (Oglala Sioux)