Comments Posted By Sheila Wilcox
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For the record, Lone Waite states that it is the Secretary of the Interior, not the President who tells the chiefs to "Endeavor to perservere".
"I'm an Indian alright but here in The Nations they call us the civilized tribes. They call us civilized because we are easy to sneak up on.
White men have been sneaking up on us for years.
They sneaked up on us and they told us we wouldn't be happy.
They told us we would be happy in The Nations.
So they took away our tribal lands and sent us here.
I had a fine woman and two sons but they all died on the Trail of Tears.
I wore a frock coat to Washington before The War.
We wore them because we belonged to the five civilized tribes.
We dressed ourselves up like Abraham Lincoln.
We got to see the secretary of the interior.
He said, "Boy, you boys sure look civilized."
He congratulated us and he gave us medals for looking so civilized.
We told him about how our tribal lands had been stolen and how our humans were dying.
When we finished he shook our hands and said "Endeavor to preserver!!"
They stood us in a line John Jumper, Chili McIntosh, Buffalo Hump, Jim Buckmark, and me, I am Lone Waite.
The newspapers took our picture and said, "Indians vow to endeavor to preserver."
We thought about for a long time, endeavor to preserver, and when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union."
Lone Waite, Indian chief - from "The Outlaw Jose Wales"
Comment Posted By Sheila Wilcox On 11.11.2006 @ 20:26
