"The Lakotas are now a sad, silent, and unprogressive people suffering the fate of all oppressed," Standing Bear said. "Today you see but a shattered specimen, a caricature... of a man that once was. Did a kind, wise, helpful, and benevolent conqueror bring this about? Can a real, true, genuinely superior social order work such havoc?"

-In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

"In early 1900's, the soldiers were replaced by bureaucrats, including educators whose official task was to break down the cultural independence of the people. On pain of imprisonment, the Lakota were forbidden the spiritual renewal of traditional ceremonies; even the ritual purification of the sweat lodge was forbidden. They were not permitted to wear Indian dress or sew beadwork, their children were seized and taken away to government boarding schools at the Pine Ridge Agency, and use of their own language was discouraged. They were, however, invited to celebrate American Independence Day on the Fourth of July, which they used as a secret memorial to Wounded Knee and later adapted to their own giveaway festivals and powwows.

'We felt mocked in our misery,' old Red Cloud said. 'We had no one to speak for us, we had no redress. Our rations were reduced again. You who eat three times a day and see your children well and happy around you cannot understand how starving Indians feel.'"

"In 1890, Big Foot was the leading traditional chief. He set out with his people on a long winter trek across the Badlands, seeking safety with Red Cloud's people on Pine Ridge; two weeks later, Big foot and two hundred or more Minnecojou men, women, and children, were relentlessly hunted down and slaughtered while fleeing for their lives by men who received twenty Congressional Medals of Honor from a grateful government."

-In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

"Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1873 said, 'There is no question of national dignity... involved in the treatment of savages by a civilized power.' He went on to say that the purpose of the reservation was to reduce "the wild beats to the condition of supplicants for charity."

"Colonel George Custer was a champion of the view that the nature of the aborigine was far more "cruel and ferocious" than that of any "wild beast of the desert," and that in no way did the red man deserve to be treated like a human being."

-In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

"The Commissioner of Indian Affairs remarked in 1872, 'The progress on the Northern Pacific Railroad will of itself completely solve the great Sioux problem, and leave the ninety thousand Indians ranging between the two transcontinental lines as incapable of resisting the Government...'

-In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

"What does Mount Rushmore mean to us Indians?" asked John Fire Lame Deer

"It means that these big white faces are telling us, 'First we gave you Indians a treaty that you could keep these Black Hills forever, as long as the sun would shine, in exchange for all of the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana. Then we found the gold and took this last piece of land, because we were stronger, and there were more of us than were of you, and because we had cannons and Gatling guns, while you hadn't progressed far enough to make a steel knife.

And when you didn't want to leave, we wiped you out, and those of you who survived, we put on reservations. And then we took the gold out, a billion bucks, and we aren't through yet.

And because we like the tourist dollars, too, we have made your sacred Black Hills into one vast Disneyland. And after we did all this we carped up this mountain, the dwelling place of your spirits, and put our four gleaming white faces here. We are the conquerors..."

-In the Spirit of Crazy Horse