"My friends, circumstances render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach, and that is to remove to the west. And the sooner you do this, the sooner you will commence your career of improvement and prosperity."

~ President, Andrew Jackson
 


Painting by Robert Lindneux, 1942. Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

 

"Brothers! I have listened to many talks from our Great Father.  When he first came over the wide waters, he was but a little man…But when the white man had warmed himself before the Indian's fire, and filled himself with their hominy, he became very large. With a step he bestrode the mountains, and his feet covered the plains and the valleys. His hands grasped the eastern and the western sea, and his head rested on the moon.  Then he became our great father. He loved his red children, and he said, 'get a little farther, lest I tread on thee…' Yet he continued to love his red children, and when he found them too slow in moving, he sent his great guns before him to sweep his path. Brothers! I have listened to a great many talks from our great father.- But they always began and ended in this- 'get a little further, you are too near me.' "

~ Speckled Snake, elder of the Creek Nation, 1829
 
 
 

back to Last Resort