“Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes, our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us? I know you will cry with me, ‘Never! Never!’”

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.

Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers….

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline.

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

From my tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my own destiny! And of that I might make the destiny of my red people, of our nation, as great as I conceive to in my mind, when I think of Weshemoneto, who rules this universe!

We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave.

Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pcanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before the summer sun.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.

The way, and the only way, to stop this evil is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be yet; for it was never divided, but belongs to all for the use of each.

Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.