# Quote — Dee Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

> I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. … Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises. … You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. … I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me.

- Author: [Dee Brown](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dee-brown.md)
- Book: [Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dee-brown/bury-my-heart-at-wounded-knee.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bury_My_Heart_at_Wounded_Knee#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/dee-brown/bury-my-heart-at-wounded-knee/i-have-heard

## More from this book

> For more than a decade Three Stars had been fighting Indians, meeting them in councils, making them promises which he could not keep. Grudgingly at first, he admitted admiration for Indian courage; since the surrenders of 1877 he was beginning to feel both respect and sympathy for his old enemies. The treatment of Cheyennes at Fort Robinson during the last few weeks had outraged him. “A very unnecessary act of power to insist upon this particular portion of the band going back to their former reservation,” he bluntly stated in his official report.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dee-brown/bury-my-heart-at-wounded-knee/for-more-than.md)

> Through the crisp dry autumn of 1877, long lines of exiled Indians driven by soldiers marched northeastward toward the barren land. Along the way, several bands slipped away from the column and turned northwestward, determined to escape to Canada and join Sitting Bull. With them went the father and mother of Crazy Horse, carrying the heart and bones of their son. At a place known only to them they buried Crazy Horse somewhere near Chankpe Opi Wakpala, the creek called Wounded Knee.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dee-brown/bury-my-heart-at-wounded-knee/through-the-crisp.md)

> In the first seconds of violence, the firing of carbines was deafening, filling the air with powder smoke. Among the dying who lay sprawled on the frozen ground was Big Foot. Then there was a brief lull in the rattle of arms, with small groups of Indians and soldiers grappling at close quarters, using knives, clubs, and pistols. As few of the Indians had arms, they soon had to flee, and then the big Hotchkiss guns on the hill opened up on them, firing almost a shell a second, raking the Indian camp, shredding the tepees with flying shrapnel, killing men, women, and children.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dee-brown/bury-my-heart-at-wounded-knee/in-the-first.md)