Fenced In

We had land, lots of land, under starry skies above
You fenced us in
We would ride, thru countryside, as free as any dove
You fenced us in
Let me be by myself in the evening breeze
Listen to the songs of the birds and bees
Watch God’s creatures doing as they please
They’re not fenced in!

Let me wander over yonder till I see the mountains rise
Just turn me loose
To plot a course on my horse underneath the western skies
You’ve no excuse
I want to ride to the ridge where the prairie commences
Gaze at the moon using all of my senses
I’m sick of noisy roads of walls and fences
You fenced me in
You fenced us in

With thanks and apologies to Cole Porter.

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Tell me true, who gave you, the right to fence us in?
We‘ve no clue, soldier blue, what you’re fighting us to win…
The land is free, can’t you see, your greed must cease.
Tell your Father, that we’d rather, live with you in peace.

Below are a few quotes that give an insight into the spirituality, vision and foresight of the Children of the Great Spirit.

"If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian,
he can live in peace...
Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law.
Give them all an even chance to live and grow.
All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief.
They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people,
and all people should have equal rights upon it...
Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop,
free to work, free to trade…
where I choose my own teachers,
free to follow the religion of my fathers,
free to think and talk and act for myself,
and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty."

“You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented to be penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit home according to his deserts; If he has been a good man, he will have a good home; if he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home. This I believe, and all my people believe the same.”

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children." Ancient American Indian Proverb.

Statement by the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians...

"The white people, who are trying to make us over into their image,
they want us to be what they call 'assimilated', bringing the Indians into the mainstream and destroying our own way of life and our own cultural patterns.
They believe we should be contented like those whose concept of happiness is materialistic and greedy, which is very different from our way.
We want freedom from the white man rather than to be integrated.
We don't want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in peace. We don't want power, we don't want to be congressmen, or bankers... we want to be ourselves.
We want to have our heritage, because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here.
The white man says, there is freedom and justice for all.
We have had 'freedom and justice', and that is why we have been almost exterminated.
We shall not forget this."

Red Cloud (Makhpiya-luta) , April, 1870
"In 1868, men came out and brought papers.
We could not read them and they did not tell us truly what was in them.
We thought the treaty was to remove the forts and for us to cease from fighting. But they wanted to send us traders on the Missouri, but we wanted traders where we were. When I reached Washington, the Great Father explained to me that the interpreters had deceived me.
All I want is right and just."
“....I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation.
We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right.
Riches would do us no good.
We could not take them with us to the other world.
We do not want riches. We want peace and love.”
"My father, you have made promises to me and to my children.
If the promises had been made by a person of no standing,
I should not be surprised to see his promises fail.
But you, who are so great in riches and power;
I am astonished that I do not see your promises fulfilled!
I would have been better pleased if you had never made such promises
than that you should have made them and not performed them..."

"How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right."

"When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up.
When we dig roots, we make little holes.
When we build houses, we make little holes.
When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don't ruin things.
We shake down acorns and pine nuts.
We don't chop down the trees. We only use dead wood.
But the white people plow up the ground,
pull down the trees, kill everything...
the White people pay no attention...
How can the spirit of the earth like the White man?...
everywhere the White man has touched it, it is sore."

"Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted
the two roads that face the light-skinned race as
the road to technology and the road to spirituality.
We feel that the road to technology...
has led modern society to a damaged and seared Earth.
Could it be that the road to technology represents a
rush to destruction, and that the road to spirituality
represents the slower path that the traditional native people
have travelled and are now seeking again?
The earth is not scorched on this trail.
The grass is still growing there."